


The Horned Violet

by whenineternal



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Auror Doyoung, Blackmail, Divination, Implied Sexual Content, Investigations, Lesbian Characters, Minor Character Death, Multi, Non-binary character, POV Alternating, Past Drug Addiction, Professor Jaehyun, Pureblood Society, Recreational Drug Use, Rehabilitation, Shady Characters, Slow Burn, Stuttering, Trans Character, Unexplained Illness, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence, mentions of dementia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-15 09:38:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 63,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21251297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whenineternal/pseuds/whenineternal
Summary: It's been eigth years since they saw each other last; that summer they spent together in the Jung family home somewhere in the English countryside. Eight years and Doyoung's case brings him back to Hogwarts and, coincidentally or not, its new Professor of Herbology who has his own share of secrets.





	1. Jaehyun

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends *cue awkward wave*
> 
> Little bit of info: tag says alternating pov, meaning from chapter to chapter. The first 2 chapters are more introductory to the characters and their situations and then chapter 3 starts the more linear narrative. 
> 
> I'm really excited about this fic, and I hope someone else will be too!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a couple notes on Jaehyun's stutter and how I write it, maybe it'll make it easier to read. When I use "..." it signifies that he's having trouble saying a word and gets caught up on the first sound, and when I use "-" it's just a small hiccup, not as noticeable.

His new office looks dreary and empty without the display of Asphodels its previous owner kept along the windowed wall on the left, and the vast library of books and papyrus that had made the remaining three walls a great mess. The floor has even been swiped clean, not a single dirty footprint nor a sprinkle of soil, and the air smells more of dust than pollen like it always did when he was a student. The only object in the room, aside from empty shelves and an old desk with a patchwork chair behind it, is a pot of freshly plucked and potted Galanthus Nivalis sitting on the corner of the desk. Fitting, he thinks, for the occasion.

He knew it would be odd coming back to Hogwarts as a teacher so soon after he left, but he hadn't prepared himself for how _ wrong _ it would feel. Grumbling quietly under his breath, he whips out his wand and points it at the potted snowbells, a wonderful gift from the retired Professor Lee, and makes it tumble over the edge of the desk.

The pot cracks into pieces and the flowers spread across the floor in a right mess, and the sight of it oddly makes him feel more at home. He waves his wand once more and the pot shards fly into the air and pieces itself back together, the flowers following soon after. In no time at all it is back on his desk just as it had been when he walked in, except for a little soil scattered over the green wooden floor. He leaves it there with a happy smile on his face and finally steps into his office, letting out a loud sigh once the door closes behind him and all his luggage, following loyally in his footsteps.

“How are you settling in?” the floating face in the flames asks, still managing to project the warm smile his mother always has for him. Jaehyun takes a bite of his shepherd's pie and sucks on the fork for a long time after he has swallowed.

“Alright,” he says eventually, elaborating when his mother gives him a raised eyebrow, “it's a bit odd.” They enjoy a comfortable silence while Jaehyun finishes his dinner, all the while thoughtlessly stroking the petals of the snowbells on his desk.

“A gift?” his mother asks and Jaehyun hums.

“A bit out of season,” he says and this time his mother is the one who makes a hum.

“But appropriate,” she says, “Hyori always knew how to say it in flowers.” Jaehyun remembers. The day before he was to take the train to Hogwarts for the very first time, an arrangement of Heather and a few light pink Gladiolus had been delivered to his house. A small gift from his future Head of House and herbology teacher.

“I ran into Mark the other day,” his mother says out of the blue, obviously changing the subject. Jaehyun almost slaps a hand to his forehead, but instead clenches his fists together in his lap, out of sight.

“It’s a shame you don’t talk anymore, he is such a nice kid.” There is no subtlety to his mom, never has been, and Jaehyun knows she is dying to pry the information out of him but he also knows that she knows he isn't planning on spilling.

“We had a falling out mum, it happens,” he says with a sigh for what feels like the millionth time. He throws in a sad look and a slight pout to get her off his back and as always, it works like a charm.

“I worry about you, sweetheart. Always,” she says and it gives Jaehyun an uncomfortable lump in his throat. He is twenty-four years old, but his mom still worries about him not having any friends.

“I have Snowy here,” he jokes and strokes the flower's white bell-like petals with a soft finger. He looks out at the darkened grounds, rubbing his thumbs together in his lap, until he hears his mother sigh.

“You'll take care of Jeno? Jieun keeps bugging me,” she says with a slight petulant tone and not for the first time Jaehyun wishes his parents had given him a sibling. He has always been envious of the close relationship his mother has with her younger sister.

“Of course,” he says and they share a soft smile before his mother's face disappears from the fireplace and the flames slowly die. They never say goodbye anymore. His mother stopped saying goodbye some months ago and Jaehyun silently followed her lead. He thinks she wants to save it for when it really is goodbye.

The room is quiet and dark following his mother's departure and Jaehyun sits heavily into his creaky chair with an even heavier sigh.

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.” He looks down at the torn up rolls of parchment littering the floor in tiny little pieces, with a sort of blank apathy. He doesn’t know which scrolls it was and he would need a puzzle master to ever find out so the only thing to do is cross his fingers it wasn’t part of his research. He hasn’t made copies of all of it yet. 

“This is why you have a smoke _ before _ you start unpacking,” he says to himself, clenching his fists to stop his fingers from trembling. He rolls one, using his wand as it’s all his hands are good for at the moment, and steps outside before he lights it. It’s probably not a good idea to stink up the greenhouses on his first day. He can feel the calm settle over him after a single drag and so he is more than a little perturbed when he can hear footsteps in the dewey grass and someone calls his name from behind. Well, they call “Professor Jung”.

“I was hoping to catch you at dinner today, but I suppose you took the time to settle in,” the stranger says when they are close enough. He is an older man, wearing a pinstripe shirt held together at the throat with a polka dot bowtie, and his hands are stuffed in the pockets of a maroon pea coat. It’s a strange ensemble. 

“Professor Qian, Potions Master” he introduces himself as, holding out a hand. Jaehyun takes it and mumbles a greeting around the cigarette between his lips. He’s not very good at socialising so he hopes the man is here with a different purpose than to simply get to know him. 

“I like to be on good terms with whoever is in charge of the greenhouses, we must work closely together after all,” Professor Qian says, still holding Jaehyun’s hand. 

“I hope you will call me Kun, eventually at least,” he says and Jaehyun nods awkwardly, taking the cigarette between his fingers and blowing the smoke away from the other man.

“Jaehyun,” he mumbles and shakes the other man’s hand, feeling like they have been holding hands for too long now. 

“Do you grow it yourself?” Professor Qian asks, pointing at the cigarette between Jaehyun’s fingers with the hand that is not still holding Jaehyun’s hostage. He feels like he should lie, tell some bullshit about how he brought only the one cigarette for the nerves, but the man has the same look in his eyes as his father sometimes gets and Jaehyun knows only the truth will do. 

“Yeah,” he says, swallowing hard as the hand holding his feels more and more like a tether by the second. Professor Qian only smiles at him and then shakes his hand one last time before letting go.

“It was nice to meet you Jaehyun, I look forward to working with you,” he says and walks back towards the castle, leaving Jaehyun feeling downright handled. 

“Bollocks.” 

His first class of the semester is with second year students, nice and easy. It’s a theoretical class though, and all the little faces looking up at him from their too-tall desks brings his stutter out with full force.

“You will-will have been taught the Severing Charm a-already,” he begins, wringing his hands together. He regrets not pushing his own desk further from the wall so he could hide behind it instead of being exposed like he is, but he thinks moving it now would only be worse. He holds his breath when a few kids at the front nod their heads attentively. The goody-two-shoes, he thinks. He was never one of them. Pushing his glasses up his nose he clears his throat and takes his wand out.

“_ Diffendio _,” he says loud and clear, pointing his wand at a single vine stretching downwards from the ceiling. It separates from the stalk and falls to the dusty floor with a small slap, seeping rosy goo from its severed end. 

“It’s a useful t... tool for any gardener or herbologist or the odd a-adventurer that were t... were to find themselves in a jungle.” He bites his tongue with a slight grimace pulling at his chin and spins on his heel, turning his back to the class. Waving his wand at the potted Pokeweeds standing off to the side of the room he sends them drifting towards his students, one for each of them.

“Practice on those,” he says and his lips tremble as he tries to get more words out past the block in his throat. Or his head, whatever. 

“Remember, _ Diffendio. _”

He may be jumping the gun on this, but he doesn’t think he can get through a whole block of just him talking, not the way he is now. And besides, practice makes perfect and the stalks of the pokeweed are especially thick; it’ll take them all forty-five remaining minutes of the class to chop them up. 

As he sits in his chair and his fingers tremble and he feels like he’s going to hurl, he tries to think up a legitimate reason to quit. He is unsuccessful. This is the best paying job he could get, by a long shot, and he needs the money. 

He smokes a cigarette before his next class and remains decidedly calmer than before and barely stutters even once, but his relaxed mind almost cost a student a finger to a particularly nasty Fanged Geranium so he figures he should find a different coping mechanism than his wizweed cigarettes. The student, a tall girl with a noticeably wide forehead, fortunately takes it all in stride. 

“O.W.L students” he mumbles to himself, “cracking.”

“Heya cuz,” a cheery voice interrupts his thought. His leg jerks against the desk, almost upsetting his precious Niffler’s Fancy, and he watches terrified as the plant tilts back and forth precariously. The room is silent as the grave for a long while after it settles, fortunately with not a leaf out of place.

“Sorry,” his younger cousin says in a meek voice and Jaehyun can imagine him walking on tiptoes when he enters the room and closes the door behind him. He pets the gleaming copper-coloured leafs with a gentle finger before he turns to the young boy in the familiar yellow-striped uniform. 

“It’s alright,” he says with a brief, mechanical smile. Jeno is all smiles when he looks at him, probably a little relieved he didn’t cause a disaster. Though he can’t be sure seeing as Jeno is almost always _ all smiles _. 

“What is it?” he asks quietly, already feeling jittery with nerves. There is exactly one person in his life Jaehyun never feels uncomfortable around and that is his mother. It used to be two, but Mark hasn’t spoken to him in several months after he traded his apartment for the five year old Niffler’s Fancy while under the influence of several cigarettes of wizweed. He still doesn’t regret it. 

“Just wanted to say hi,” Jeno smiles at him and ambles closer with his hands behind his back.

“Is it valuable?” he asks, clearly talking about his Niffler’s Fancy. The squirt can’t take his eyes off it. Jaehyun waves his wand and the Niffler’s Fancy disappears into thin air just as Jeno was about to touch one of it’s coppery leaves and he suppresses a smirk at the confounded look on the boy’s face. 

“I t...traded my apartment for it, so yeah,” he says, smacking his lips afterwards. “Don’t tell mum,” he adds as an afterthought. He wants a joint, but he’s already had three that day and he doesn’t want to overdo it. He hears Jeno mumble something, but his mind is too scattered to catch the words, both trying to focus on his cousin and thinking about his research that he was working on before Jeno barged in. 

“Auxilium Deum?” Jeno reads from the parchments on his desk. “Is that the thing you went to Greece for?” Jaehyun only hums and Jeno stays quiet at his side. He understands; it makes him sad as well. 

A knock on the door breaks them out of their silent reverie and they turn as one to the door as Jaehyun calls out for whoever it is to enter. 

“Jeno?” an unfamiliar voice asks as the person sticks their head around the door. It’s Jaemin. Jaehyun knows him a little, but he must have gone through voice change over the summer as he couldn’t recognise him at all. He smiles at Jaehyun and greets him with a polite “Professor Jung” and then he turns his attention back to Jeno who Jaehyun only then notices is no longer at his side.

“Why did you want me to meet you here?” Jaemin asks, smiling probably from the force of Jeno’s smile directed at him.

“I just wanted to say hi to _ Professor Jung _ and I figured if you met me here we could go to the library together,” Jeno says and waves goodbye to Jaehyun. The two boys leave, but not before Jaehyun catches a playfully snide remark from Jaemin.

“Careful, you don’t want to make it sound like we’re boyfriends or something.”

It’s not the exact same words, and the tone is decidedly different, but he can’t help how they remind him of another Slytherin, with sharper eyes and a harder-to-find smile, who once upon a time said exactly that to him. 

  
  
  


_ “People will start talking Jaehyun, they might think we’re boyfriends or something,” Doyoung said, looking at him over his copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5. Jaehyun brought his hand back to his lap, wringing his fingers together in slight distress. He hadn’t meant to grab Doyoung’s hand like that, it had just happened. Exam stress, he put it down to. His theory of charms O.W.L. was in mere hours after all and he felt like he was going to hurl. _

_ “You’ll do fine,” Doyoung’s voice was surprisingly comforting. Since the Slytherin became his tutor just before Christmas, Jaehyun had never heard that tone of voice from Doyoung. He was even graced with a brief smile when he looked up from the table into Doyoung’s eyes. _

_ “That’ll be your doing then,” he said, grimacing when his voice cracked a little at the end. He had already aced his Herbology exam, and done alright on his Potions exam. Defense Against The Dark Arts he was hoping he would at least get an A so he could pass, but he was left with Transfiguration and Charms this week, and his hopes were not very high for either of them. _

_ “I’ll help you with Arithmancy and History of Magic over the weekend, but the rest I think you will do alright with on your own,” Doyoung said while folding his arms loosely over his chest and leaning back in his chair. His face softened for a second and Jaehyun wouldn’t have caught it if he hadn’t been looking at him. Doyoung wasn’t a cold person by any means, just focused, dedicated and highly ambitious. He put so much pressure on himself because he wanted desperately to succeed. Jaehyun knew all that only from piecing together all the tiny bits of information he had weaseled from Doyoung through their many study sessions over the last months. He would only admit it to himself, but he would probably have been doing far better in all his classes if he wasn’t more focused on getting to know Doyoung, than the subject matter Doyoung was trying to teach him. _

_ They might think we’re boyfriends or something, Doyoung had said. And wasn’t that a nice thought. _

  
  


By the end of September, Jaehyun finally feels like he is settling into his new position. He has been through every class three times and can already recognise a few faces, names are a different thing, and the fact that he has yet to have a student more gifted in Herbology than himself has certainly helped calm his nerves. It’s a little arrogant maybe, but he feels he has a right to be.

“You will have to teach me from now on,” Professor Lee had told him in his sixth year, in his very first NEWT class. And she was serious too.

He knows he owes his job at Hogwarts to her, knows she recommended him before they even started looking for her replacement, and Jaehyun will be forever grateful. Maybe he should send her a cutting of his Niffler’s Fancy. He is sure she would appreciate it. 

Lost in thought he nearly walks into a pile of rubble in the middle of the dark hallway and realises he has wandered far from his destination. Most of the castle and its grounds were cleaned up and rebuilt after the war in ‘98, but in places like this where there are only unused classrooms and dusty storerooms the odd, caved-in wall can still be found littering the floor. He backtracks his steps and soon enough finds himself in front of the door he was looking for, and he knocks three times. It opens on its own and Jaehyun sticks his head in first before he steps over the threshold. Professor Qian had sent a student with a message for him earlier in the day, asking to meet him in his office, but he had given no explanation for why so Jaehyun is a little cautious about it all. He wasn’t exactly left with a good feeling about their last private meeting, however short it was. 

“Jaehyun!” the enthusiastic voice of Professor Qian calls from the back of the room. “Come in, come in!”

“I hope you don’t mind. I’m sure you’re busy as well, but I couldn’t leave this alone,” he says without looking at Jaehyun. He is stirring slowly in a cauldron and when Jaehyun gets close enough he sees the boiling red liquid inside, or goo, as it is. 

“Did you need something?” he asks, keeping a safe distance between himself and the piping hot cauldron. And Professor Qian for that matter. 

“I was hoping you had some cowbane, I seem to have run out,” Professor Qian says in a drawn out voice as he carefully squeezes the juice of a common plum into his cauldron. Jaehyun does have a batch of cowbane in one of the greenhouses, though they are still young and not ready to be harvested just yet. Definitely not for potion making. 

He tells Professor Qian as much, but he doesn’t seem perturbed. 

“It can wait,” he says and finally turns to smile at Jaehyun, “just let me know when they are ready.”

“Excuse me for asking Professor, but what do you need them for?” he stutters and draws even further away from the table with the cauldron as its contents begin to produce a dark purple steam.

“No worries, it’s for a simple Shrinking Solution. A friend of mine accidentally enlarged his cat and it is now the size of a full-grown Whomping Willow,” Professor Qian laughs lightly and while Jaehyun believes Professor Qian would have a friend like that, his story doesn’t sound very believable. For one, Jaehyun doubts that is something that could possibly wait. 

He tries to imagine it; a monstrous cat with eyes like the moon and fangs taller than him. It’s a little terrifying. 

“I’ll have a... have a batch set aside for you. Do you need me to li-liquidize it for you?” he asks, anxious to leave. Professor Qian has been kind so far, but he makes Jaehyun uneasy in a way no one else does. 

“Thank you Jaehyun, but I can do that myself. Do you mind if I call you Jaehyun?” Professor Qian asks and Jaehyun shakes his head when the older man looks at him. He isn’t used to being called Professor Jung yet so he really doesn’t mind. 

He thinks that must be it and so makes to leave with a polite bow of his head.

“How old are you Jaehyun?” Professor Qian asks, stopping him in his tracks. 

“Twenty-four,” he answers quietly and Professor Qian hums in obvious surprise.

“Twenty-four,” he says, “you would have been a student when I started teaching then. I don’t remember having you in my class.” Of course he wouldn't. Professor Qian started teaching in Jaehyun’s seventh year at Hogwarts, and while Jaehyun remembers his face from seeing him in passing, he has never been taught by him.

“I didn’t take Advanced Potions,” he explains and Professor Qian hums again. He seems to do that a lot. Jaehyun bites his tongue as he almost asks “can I go now Professor” like he was still a student, and tilts his head with a quiet “good day” instead. He isn’t escaping, he tells himself, but he knows deep down that escaping is exactly what he is doing. 

Walking swiftly down the hallway, he ascends the staircase taking two steps at a time and he doesn’t slow down until he exits the main entrance of the castle. Fingers fiddling with the rolled joint in the pocket of his cloak he mumbles to himself. “Hickory Dickory Dock. Bloody hell.”

Dinner in the Great Hall turns out to be the thing he finds most difficult adjusting to. Sitting at the head of the hall with all the other teachers and the headmistress is a stressful environment, but at least he has a front row seat to his cousin floating pumpkin pasties or treacle tart all across the hall to the Slytherin table almost every night. It’s an entertaining piece of magic as the little dessert flies out of the way of any grabbing hands until it floats to a gentle stop on Jaemin’s plate. 

It’s a sweet gesture, but he doesn’t think Jeno realises just how obvious he is being and he can’t help but worry. The two boys are friends no doubt about it, but Jeno is the same as_ he _ was eight years ago, helplessly crushing on his brilliant tutor and hopelessly optimistic that there could one day be something more. Jaehyun got his wish, but Jaemin isn’t Doyoung and he doesn’t know if baked desserts will do the trick. He won’t say anything though, mostly because he doesn’t really know what _ to _ say, but partly also because he isn’t sure a flirt like Jaemin is the right match for his cousin. The silver-tongued Slytherin even flirts with _ him _, in almost every class they have. 

“Bugger,” he mumbles under his breath. _ Silver-tongued Slytherin _. That moniker is taken, he thinks. 

_ “Have you ever snogged anyone before?” Doyoung’s silky voice whispered in his ear as they stood pressed behind a statue of a rearing centaur. Hiding from the student body in a covered alcove. The sun lit the small space through the dirty windows and the hallway on the other side of the curtain was alive with early-morning chatter. He had been on his way to the Great Hall for breakfast when Doyoung had maneuvered him into their little hiding spot. The Slytherin was so close he could smell his minty breath and a second later he was tasting it as he was snogging someone for the first time in his life. _

“Bugger of,” he mumbles and hits his temple a couple times with the heel of his hand. A gentle clearing of a throat beside him draws his attention and he smiles briefly at the diminutive Charms professor before he hides his face behind his cup of pumpkin juice and wishes it was something stronger. 

“I thought we would end the term with something fun,” he says loudly, his back still turned to the class of fourth years as they slowly settle down and the room grows quiet. He waves his wand in a careless manner under his arm and smiles at the clamor of surprised exclamations that follows. 

“Bouncing Bulbs!” he declares in a loud voice while spinning around on his heels. “They’re p...practically useless. You’re going to re-pot them.”

The class is quiet for several seconds, none of them sharing his humor, until a delightfully creative yet horrifyingly mischievous Ravenclaw raises his hand.

“Professor, if they’re so useless _ why _ are we being taught how to _ re-pot _ them?”

Jaehyun knows him well enough by now, from almost as many detentions as classes, and is a Bowtruckles nose away from being certain his name is Donghyuk Kim. A good student, naturally brilliant, but any interest in herbology is a thing he sadly lacks. 

“Because they’re purple,” he says and smiles when it garners a scattering of laughter throughout the room. 

“Now these are a couple weeks old so they are the perfect size to practice handling a plant disinclined to being handled,” he says as he pulls on his dragon-hide gloves and positions himself behind his own desk.

“You want to grip it ti... grip it tightly with both hands before pulling it out,” he explains and demonstrates by placing one hand around the slimmer top of the plant and digs the other into the pot until he can feel the thicker end of the purple stem in his palm. Then he carefully pulls the Bouncing Bulb from the pot.

He holds it up so everyone can see how he is holding it and then he deposits it in the empty pot and covers it with soil. Patting the excess soil from his gloves, he walks around the desk and leans back against it.

“The first one to get their Bouncing Bulb into a new pot gets 10 house points,” he says and then he watches and waits. The class ends with a few black eyes and a couple broken teeths and about a dozen shattered pots and ten points to Slytherin. Apparently Jaemin has a firm grip.

“All those Quidditch practices,” he winks when he passes Jaehyun on the way out of the greenhouse while flexing a bicep. He doesn’t seem to care that it makes no difference under the robes he is wearing.

“You should think about leaving now Mr. Na, before I decide to take your points back,” he says with a playful smile. He is in a good mood today.

Jaemin leaves with a wave and Jaehyun’s smile stays on his face until the boy disappears out the door and someone else takes his place.

“Jaehyun,” Professor Qian greets with a smile that stays in place even as Jaehyun’s face noticeably darkens. He can only think of one reason why the Potions professor is there. 

“Are you here for more of my Venomous Tentacula leafs, Professor?” he asks in the place of a greeting, his good mood all but evaporated.

“I must admit I don’t know what you mean,” Professor Qian says with that same fixed smile on his face. Jaehyun doesn’t push the subject. He knows someone has been stealing leaves from his tentacled friends and while he can’t prove it, he is as sure that it is Professor Qian as he is sure that the sun will rise each morning. 

“What can I help you with Professor?” he asks instead.

“I have found myself in need of some Aconite,” Professor Qian says and he is suddenly very close, far closer than Jaehyun is comfortable with, and he very obviously sniffs the air around Jaehyun. 

“I’m sure that’ll be no problem for you to acquire.”

Jaehyun tries very hard to stand his ground, but it has never been his strong suit and so he ends up retreating. When he has put sufficient distance between himself and the older man he turns, his cloak flying around his feet, and stuffs his hands in the pockets of his trousers. 

“Is it the flowers you want? Or the root maybe? Or is it the p...poisonous leaves you find yourself in need of?”

This is not the first time Professor Qian has showed up in his greenhouses asking for a plant he shouldn’t have. First it was the relatively harmless Arnica. While it is often used in potion making, it was removed from the Hogwarts greenhouses several decades ago after too many students had received a rather colourful rash from coming in contact with the plant. Jaehyun had been talked into acquiring a seedling of it, to keep the Potions Master’s shelves stocked at all times.

Then it was Bloodroot. The perennial plant was once again a toxic one and Jaehyun had started to suspect Professor Qian needed it for whatever extra-curricular activities it was that pulled him away from the school so many nights, more than for any potions class he could ever teach. The last time it was Hemlock and Jaehyun didn’t even want to imagine what Professor Qian could possibly need it for.

“I think the whole plant would be the easiest, don’t you?” Professor Qian asks. His voice remains calm, almost serene, even faced with Jaehyun’s hostility. 

“I think the easiest would be to not give you anything,” he says slowly with a clenched jaw. Every muscle in his face is close to spasming with the effort it takes to keep his stutter at bay.

“I won’t grow poisonous plants in my greenhouse.”

Professor Qian smiles then. Not the same pleasant smile as before, but rather it’s a victorious smile and Jaehyun knows before he opens his mouth what it is he’s going to say.

“You know, most muggles consider the Cannabis plant to be poisonous, and I am quite sure the ones you grow are more so than normal.”

He knows he has lost. Professor Qian doesn’t need to say it any clearer for Jaehyun to know he is being blackmailed. If word got out that he was growing wizweed on school property, which is as Professor Qian said, far more potent than its muggle counterpart, he would be out of a job quicker than he could say Scurvy Grass. 

“I’ll be back for it after the holidays,” Professor Qian walks to the door and looks over his shoulder as he steps through and says, “Happy Christmas.”

Jaehyun is left with an ugly feeling in his chest and with tears prickling in the corners of his eyes. Dammit, he thinks. Mark was right. The bloody cigarettes would end up ruining his life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/donscity)


	2. Doyoung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally meet Doyoung! This starts at about the same time as Jaehyun's chapter did, right before September 1st. Note the additional tags concerning side characters.

“Sneakoscopes that have been tampered with, two-way mirrors that have been tampered with, brooms that have been tampered with! Are they trying to fool me?!” The papers on his desk go flying as he throws his arms out in frustration. He looks at the new intern over the top of his glasses as the young man hesitantly clears his throat.

“Maybe Sir, I mean they could be branching out, Sir,” he says, stumbling over his words. Doyoung only met him earlier that day when his Head of Department all but shoved him into his office, fresh off the training program (and fresh out of school by the looks of him) and Doyoung thinks his name is Mark. He also thinks he must be utterly incompetent. 

“When you have been smuggling dark artefacts and experimental potions in and out of the country for five years without getting caught you don’t simply  _ branch out _ into PRANK ITEMS!” He tries to keep his voice even, but the pressure building inside him is too strong to keep the lid on for long. 

“I am sure I asked for an ASSISTANT, not a FOOL!” He waves an angry hand at the boy and sends him running out the doors of his office when they fly open. Falling heavily into his chair he rubs his temples with tense fingers. He was maybe a little harsh on the boy, but he knows from his three previous assistants that working for him isn’t pretty so it’s better to make a really bad first impression he figures, than put on a phony smile for the kid. It comes with the added bonus of being able to blow off some steam. 

“Cut him some slack Kim,” a pretty but stern voice comes from the opened doors. “The kid was reading through the case files on the way over here and he’s done nothing but ask questions since he got here. He’s working hard to get caught up.”

Irene stands with her hands on her hips, looking even more ferocious than usual with a frown on her face. His new assistant must have done something very right to have the Department Head defending him like this, he thinks. Or Irene likes  _ him _ even less today than on any other day. 

He decides not to say anything, he has never once won an argument with the woman and he really doesn’t have the energy to try. 

“Since you are so certain this flood of  _ prank items _ on the black market is just a ruse, I suggest you direct your attention to the real matters at hand,” she says and spins on her high heels. Her leather half-skirt flutters between her legs when she walks away and Doyoung shakes his head with his eyes closed when he catches himself staring. Stop trying, he tells himself, she likes men about as much as he wishes he didn’t. 

She’s right though, as much as he hates having it shoved in his face he knows that he has been wasting his time on this. It has been eighteen months since he was handed the case of the elusive  _ Moonshiner _ and he is no closer to uncovering their identity than he is to figuring out how to get on Irene’s good side. If she even has one. 

He looks over his own little display board beside his desk, at the multitude of seemingly unconnected reports of mysterious deaths and cases of unexplained mishaps and theft. The one thing they all have in common is the appearance of mescaline in either the perpetrator or the victim’s bloodstream, usually paired with a case of memory loss. The hallucinogen is a relatively new drug in the British wizarding community, but Doyoung is familiar with it from his American contacts, and lately there have even been reports of it in parts of Eastern Asia. Maybe it’s time he got in touch with Lee Taeyong again, he thinks, scratching his nose as a small smile grows on his lips. 

“You’re late!” is the greeting Doyoung gets as he walks through the door of his friend’s workplace. That and a satsuma thrown at his forehead. He bends to pick the fruit off the ground and throws it back and forth between his hands as he walks to the back of the shop and to the small round table laid with a delicious-looking lunch. It  _ smells _ good too and Doyoung smiles when he sees a plate of scotch eggs in between the plates of crumpets and scones and the many jars of fruity marmalade. 

“An Earl Grey spritzer Doyoung?” Yeri asks and holds up a tall glass for him to take. He accepts it with a thank you after hanging his jacket over the back of his chair and sitting down. 

“I’m really glad you could join us today Doyoung,” Joy says, hiding a playful smile behind her hand. “We have some business to discuss.”

“Yes, what a business,” he gripes with a sour face, but the two women know he is only joking. They eat lunch in companionable silence, only sharing their opinions on the food every once in a while, the only exception being when Yeri magically tops off their glasses once they empty.

“I think we are all going to need it, don’t you?” she asks with a light laugh that Doyoung knows is fake. Yeri only laughs in a boisterous manner. He has always liked that about her. While he and Joy were raised in Pureblood households, the youngest out of them is a muggleborn. But her father is an Earl and Yeri has been brought up under very similar circumstances as he and Joy so she fits seamlessly among them in any situation. She knows how to be delicate when she needs to. 

“Where is your neophyte?” Doyoung asks and takes a sip of his spritzer. 

“Sicheng? I sent him away,” Joy answers with a careless wave of a hand. Doyoung appreciates her foresight, but he wishes he could have at least caught a glimpse of him. He might not have any plans on pursuing anything, but Joy’s foreign apprentice is a nice face to look at. 

“I’m sorry I missed him,” he hums and the two women snort inelegantly. Joy throws her long hair over her shoulder and fixes him with a look he recognises from his mother’s face, the subtle arrogance of a Pureblood witch, except in Joy’s eyes there is still a trace of humor.

“We are here to discuss the matter of our marriage and you are thinking of someone else?” she says, twisting her voice so she sounds more like her grandmother, the wizened old woman who used to smack them when they came home dirty from playing in the grottos near Joy’s family estate. They all share a laugh, but it doesn’t last long and soon they are quiet and solemn once again.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Doyoung asks, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Joy laces their fingers together on top of the table and gives his hand a tight squeeze, a sure sign she isn’t confident about this at all.

“I’m certain I don’t want to,” she says with a glance at Yeri, “but you’re the only one I could imagine doing this with.”

Doyoung feels the same way. If he has to, and it feels like he has to, then he knows marrying Joy will give him a lifetime of happiness, even if they never fall in love with each other. 

“Besides, this way I can have children that my parents will accept,” Joy says with a high-pitched laugh and Doyoung frowns at their hands. Joy hasn’t come out to her parents yet, but he remembers one late night a couple years ago when she had showed up on his doorstep in a distraught state, saying over and over again how she can never tell them.

She never told him what brought it on, but now he thinks he knows. 

“We all know how much Joy wants her little monsters,” Yeri jokes and Doyoung reaches out for her hand as well. She is as much a part of this as any of them and it is important to him that she knows where she stands.

“I’m not taking her away from you,” he says quietly, looking her steadily in the eye. Yeri smiles a muted, sad smile, but her posture visibly relaxes when Joy takes her other hand in hers. 

“I feel like we should say some long-winded, abstract spell right now. We look like a coven,” Yeri laughs and after a look around the table at them all holding hands, Doyoung laughs as well. 

“When will you do it?” she asks next, carefully removing her hand from Doyoung’s to cradle her girlfriend’s hand between her palms. Doyoung watches them for a few seconds, ignoring the evil called envy whispering in his mind, and then he sighs.

“On September 3rd. I will tell my parents I intend to ask for Joy’s hand in marriage. I see no reason why my father will deny it, and my mother will like the idea of me asking on Joy’s birthday,” he says, carefully appropriate, in his business voice.

“The rest can be up to you,” he looks at Joy, at her closed off face and her fingers that are tapping a steady rhythm on the tabletop.

“As soon as possible,” she says quietly, barely looking at him and Doyoung thinks that’s his que to leave. He dabs his mouth with a napkin and stands, throwing his jacket over his shoulders and slipping it on.

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” he says quietly and cups Joy’s cheek in his palm, like he has done since they were kids. He thinks it brings them both comfort. Then he smiles at Yeri with a tilt of his head and exits the tailor shop into the busy street of Diagon Alley. 

He hadn’t heard her come in, hadn’t even sensed her stepping up behind him, and only knew she was there when her fresh, sort of piny scent that always reminded him of petrichor in a boreal forest, assaulted his senses. 

“How can I help you Ms. Department Head?” he asks, barely looking over his shoulder at her and he smiles a short glimmer of a smile when her forehead pinches in annoyance. She never liked it when he called her that. Though to be fair, she didn’t seem to like him no matter what he called her. 

“Everyone else have already gone home for the day,” she says, asking a question without actually asking. She is a veritable expert at that. 

“I know,” is his reply, spoken past the fluffy tip of his feather quill that he has been sucking on for the better part of the last hour. Now that he thinks about it, his mouth has gotten a weird taste from it. Gagging quietly, he throws the quill in the direction of the garbage can, certain he missed and certain he doesn’t care. 

“Is that how he looks like in your head?” Irene asks, in a quiet almost sympathetic way that he would never have expected from her. He looks over the drawing of the face that haunts his waking and sleeping hours both, traces the familiar arch of a strong nose and the thin eyebrows sitting on a high forehead. He had sketched it one night much like this when he had been working himself in circles trying to find anything he could use to catch the bastard. Or bastards, possibly. He isn’t entirely sure if the  _ Moonshiner _ works alone or not. 

When he was given the case a year and a half ago, the file was no more than a paper leaf thick and Doyoung remembers scoffing at the smuggler’s highly unimaginative moniker. By that time the  _ Moonshiner _ had already been working his operation for five years—at least— and still the only evidence they had was his signature, handwritten in silver ink, on a few dozen bottles of illegal potions. And more recently, a barrage of insignificant items.

Doyoung doesn’t even know if the  _ Moonshiner _ is actually male, but he really hopes he is so he won’t feel quite as guilty when he does his face in with his fists. He won’t even use magic, he’ll just give him a good old-fashioned beating. He only has to catch the conniving bastard first. 

“You know why they gave you this case Doyoung,” Irene’s voice jars him out of his own thoughts and he frowns fiercely at the cherry wood floorboards. 

“Don’t beat yourself up over not solving it, no one else could do a better job,” she says, ending the highly one-sided conversation by leaving the room. 

He plucks another quill from the cup on his desk and dips the tip in his ink bottle, sneering at his drawing of the  _ Moonshiner _ as he gives it an ugly wart on the side of its nose and little devil horns on its head. He can’t stand how Irene and everyone else looks at him with such pity, like he doesn’t know better than anyone this case was considered dregs and he is the compost bin. It doesn’t matter, he will stew on it until he solves it and then he will shove it in their faces with the refinement and class of a Pureblood. 

_ Always be better _ . It’s the words he has grown up with; from his father who always expected so much from him, from his mother who raised him to be a good man, and from his brother who always urged him to be a better son than he ever was. He will  _ always _ be better. 

“The nurse told me you haven’t been outside in a while,” he says, to thin air for how well it is received. His brother is still sitting in the same position he was in when Doyoung got there half an hour earlier, slumped in an armchair with both arms dangling over the sides and is staring blankly out the panorama window. It has been an entirely one-sided conversation, but Doyoung isn’t discouraged in the slightest. 

“Summer is almost over, you should take advantage of the warmth before the temperature drops. Aunt Yoona predicts a cold winter and I know you don’t like snow.”

He moves to stand by the window just so he can see Gongmyung’s face, to see the miniscule reactions in the muscles of his face that tells him his brother isn’t completely gone. 

“I brought you some chocolate frogs, and every-flavoured beans. I already sorted them so the yellow box has the good ones and the red box has the bad ones. You can prank the nurses, like we used to do when we were little, do you remember?”

Gongmyung’s head tilts to his right shoulder and the corner of his mouth twitches slightly. Doyoung knows he is listening, but most days he doesn’t want to respond, or he can’t be bothered to. Reminding him of things from his childhood is the best way to get a response from him. Whether it be his old stuffed hippogriff that Doyoung had dug out of storage and that now sits on the nightstand next to the bed; or simply talking about the short period of their life when their mother would cook their dinners herself instead of having the house elves do it. He never says anything though, and Doyoung misses hearing his brother’s voice. 

“Do you want to go for a walk now that I’m here?” he asks, like he does every time he visits. And like every other time, he gets the same response; a slight shift in the tension in Gongmyung’s body and a bout of aggressive blinking. He knows it is fear that holds Gongmyung back; his research told him that even before the doctors could. Gongmyung’s addiction to Felix Felicis has left him incapable, stunted by a crippling fear of doing even the smallest things on his own. Like walking, or eating, sometimes even moving at all. 

A nurse comes in then, knocking quietly on the door as she slips through. 

“Mr. Kim,” she greets him politely while crossing the room to crouch in front of his brother. 

“It’s dinner time Gongmyung, do you want to eat in here?” she asks, resting a careful hand on his knee. She has been Gongmyung’s nurse since the first time he was admitted and Doyoung is glad to know that they seem to have formed a bond. His brother needs good people in his life, especially after their parents refused to acknowledge him. The first time he was admitted, their parents did everything in their power to provide him with the best care, but when he had a relapse only days after ending the rehabilitation program, they all but gave up on him. 

The nurse leaves only long enough to roll the tray of food in from the hallway, and Doyoung takes the short moment of privacy to run a hand through Gongmyung’s hair and drop a kiss to the top of his head.

“I’ll be back next week,” he says and he shares a sad smile with the nurse as they pass each other on his way out. 

The strong wind blowing in from the sea tears at his clothes and pushes his hair into his face as he walks the long, cobbled pathway to his family home. He could have Flooed, but after seeing Gongmyung he knew he needed some time before meeting his parents. So instead he had apparated to the edge of the Fidelius Charm and walked. He had forgotten how autumn always seems to come sooner here than everywhere else in the country. His velveteen jacket doesn’t shield him from the wind, and it slips even easier through his thin turtleneck.

As he crests the hill, the estate comes into view. As Pureblood properties go, the manor is quite small, but it compensates with a massive, sprawling garden. Both his parents are outdoors people, preferring to stay in their orchard and their flower garden, their parterre and their water garden. Since they both retired some fifteen years ago they have tended all of it themselves, refusing the help of even their sons. Doyoung have always believed the large interest in gardening and herbology comes from it being one of very few things his parents have in common. That they bonded so strongly over it in the beginning of their arranged marriage that it grew to form their entire lives together. 

He takes the winding path through the parterre garden in the front courtyard to get an extra minute alone with his thoughts. 

He hasn’t spoken to Joy since the day before yesterday, when they had lunch together at Rosa Lee Teabag. She had shown him the dress she intended to wear for the ceremony, an emerald-coloured, silk and crochet ensemble that was far more understated than he would have expected. They had decided on green and silver to commemorate their Hogwarts house, and Doyoung had made a visit to their family tailor only that morning. He hadn’t wanted to risk the word slithering its way through the vines of the Pureblood rumor mill before he could ask his parent’s permission. He isn’t nervous about talking to his parents, there is no reason why they would say no after all. Joy is a good match for him, impeccable bloodline, which in its essence, is all this plan is about. 

He is however, terrified of asking for Joy’s hand in front of her parents, which they have planned for dinner the next day. Joy have always been her father’s precious girl, and Doyoung doubts anyone, even him, is good enough in his eyes. A small laugh burst from his lips as his mind creates an image of Mr. Park, twisted by monstrous features and towering over him like Polyphemus and he is Odysseus. He should remember to bring a bottle of his father’s home-brewed wine from the cellar to soften Mr. Park to him. 

“Doyoung!” his father’s voice shouts over the din of branches brushing together in the wind, sounding faint due to the distance between them. Doyoung detours from the path without looking, knowing exactly where he will find his father at this time of day. 

“Father,” he greets with a small bow, smiling a moment later when the elderly man waves a good-natured hand at him and motions him closer. He is dressed in a hanbok for once, dark brown and white in colour, as opposed to his favoured british style attire of waistcoats and frock coats and cravats and spats. His father has always been old-fashioned in some ways, while his mother is more with the times, to the extent that when they don’t dress together they can make quite the funny picture. 

“I was just picking some apples, here boy take this,” he says and Doyoung finds himself holding a basket half full with bright red apples. He takes his wand out and casts a levitation spell and quickly moves to help his father pick the apples from the tree once the basket is floating peacefully in the air. 

“Ah yes, very clever,” his father quips, patting him roughly on the shoulder with a small grimace that Doyoung almost miss. It’s the look his father always gets when he realises he has forgotten something again. 

They work in silence picking apples, careful to take only the properly ripe ones, until the basket is brimming with them and is drooping a little in the air.

“Let us go inside son, Tilly should have dinner ready soon,” his father waves a hand at the manor, stepping carefully on the gravel and Doyoung quietly holds his arm out for the man to take if he wants. His father have always been a carer, accepting help is never easy for him, but he still seems grateful as he hooks his arm through Doyoung’s elbow.

“Try not to become an old man like me, Doyoung,” he jokes quietly, a murmur of a laugh slipping past his lips. It is a time-honored joke, one his father has made since Doyoung’s formative days as he became more and more like his father. 

His mother is looking out at them from the large windows in the foyer as they approach the front doors and Doyoung waves a hand at her in greeting, not surprised when her arms remain firmly tucked around her thin chest. Her face is set in a carefully blank mien, but there is a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. 

“Hello mother, it is good to see you,” he greets her as they step inside, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to her cheek. She hums, a bare sound in her soft, wispy voice and finally allows her arms to fall at her sides, gripping Doyoung’s hand briefly. 

“It’s been much too long Doyoung,” she scolds gently and Doyoung only smiles, albeit a bit wryly. They both know he has been avoiding coming home, but like true purebloods they will act like nothing's wrong. 

They all migrate to the drawing room, settling into cushiony seats around a low lounge table already decked with several bottles of home-brewed wine and three large glasses. A plate of artistically layered fruit sits in the middle and Doyoung picks a handful of blue grapes and pops one in his mouth as he sits back into the sofa and crosses one leg over the other. He pretends he doesn’t see his mother quietly slipping his father’s wand into his pocket and only looks at them when the man waves it at the basket of apples and it disappears, magicked to the brewery in the basement. 

Cerebral atrophy, his mother told him once in the quietest of whispers. She had consulted a doctor in private, fed up with her husbands stubbornness, and they only talked about it the one time. Doyoung doesn’t know how to talk about it with his father, about his forgetfulness and obvious frustration with himself, and he is more than grateful that the man himself isn’t inclined to talk about any of it. 

It’s how they work, ignorance is the rope binding them together. Doyoung has long been convinced that if they ever talked about the things they never talk about, they would cease to be a family. Not for a lack of love, but the drastic absence of anything else. 

“How is work Doyoung?” his father asks, holding out a hand for the glass filled with plum coloured wine floating towards him. 

“Work is fine, Mr Choi asked me to pass on his regards,” he replies.

“Ah really? Good man, good man.”

Quiet reigns again. 

“How are your tomatoes mother? Will I be able to taste them at dinner later?” he turns to the woman, waiting patiently as she drinks slowly from her wine before answering him. 

“I’m afraid not, but I’ll make sure to send you a few dozen once they are ripe.”

“You haven’t touched your wine,” she states, and Doyoung knows he won’t get away with not drinking by the crass arch of her brow, but he tries anyway. 

“I try not to drink as much mother,” “Nonsense, don’t disrespect your father with such drivel, drink.”

Doyoung bites back a sigh and takes a long sip of the full-bodied wine, swallowing it down without properly tasting it.

“It’s good wine,” he comments quietly to which his father only hums. 

They mostly sit in silence, drinking and nibbling on fruit, for the next half hour until Tilly shows up in the arch doorway and softly proclaims dinner is served. They eat in silence, as they always do; conversation at the dinner table have been frowned upon for as long as Doyoung can remember, enjoying their meal of glazed beef and mashed potatoes, and Doyoung waits. He doesn’t say anything as the plates are cleared, keeps his silence as they have a glass of malt whiskey, and waits for his mother to lay her arm over the armrest of her chair in a most dignified slump. Then he rises from his seat.

“Mother, father,” he announces, squaring his shoulders when they both look at him.

“This was not a social visit, I am here to ask your blessing. Tomorrow, on September 3rd, I hope to ask Mr.Park for Joy’s hand in marriage.”

His parents exchange looks, oddly quiet in the wake of an announcement they should rejoice in. While they have never had any personal issues with his sexuality, he knows what family means to them. So it comes as a surprise when his father lays his hands on the table, curled into fists, and says a firm “No.”

“I don’t get it, why would he say no?!” Doyoung paces the kitchen floor, talking to the air as much as to his mother who is perched straight-backed in a chair by the fireplace. 

“Joy is my perfect match, the joining of our families would strengthen the bloodline like nothing else. Does he not see this?!”

“It would strengthen the bloodline, that is true,” his mother says to the flickering flames. 

Doyoung leans over the dining table in the middle of the room, palms pressing hard into the old wood. A surge of anger runs through his veins and when he clenches his fists the copper cans with pretty, fresh flowers in them rattles against each other. 

“Doyoung, please. Contain yourself,” his mother scolds without looking at him. She is turning her signet ring on her finger, Doyoung can see the restless movement and is only waiting for her to say what she needs. He doesn’t have to wait long.

“Have you been in a relationship with Joy?” she asks, rising from the armchair and folding her hands in front of herself in an image of perfect calm. 

“Answer me Doyoung,” she demands when he doesn’t speak for several seconds. He sighs heavily and allows his head to fall limply between his shoulders.

“No mother,” he says quietly, attempting to quell his anger by mirroring his mother’s calm. “Joy is my best friend, she’s the girl I dared to lick slugs in our backyard. But this is convenient for us both, will he not see that?”

His mother gathers her skirts around her and Doyoung knows the conversation is over before she even moves to the stairs.

“Your father has made up his mind. You will do best not to try and change it,” she says and disappears up the stairwell in utter silence, leaving Doyoung no more satisfied with their talk than before it started. 

It’s quiet in the office that Monday. Irene hasn’t been to see him, Mark has been in the archives since the morning when Doyoung sent him there, and no one else seems willing to breach the bubble of sourness surrounding him. He had to endure an emotional break down the night before when he finally met up with Joy after only telling her by owl that their plans were bust. He loves Joy, but he would have preferred Yeri to have been there once the anger disappeared and the tears started falling. It’s not that he doesn’t understand, for both of them this arrangement was the silver lining, but while he may feel a lot of the same despairing emotions as Joy, he feels just as much disdain at the thought of expressing them. 

He can’t make sense of his father’s blatant rejection, the old man always loved Joy, treated her as part of the family and vocalised on several occasions how impeccable her bloodline is. Why then, is she not good enough for him to marry? Or is it that his father finds  _ him _ lacking? Is he not good enough for Joy?

Their families have always had a good relationship—with the collapse of the pureblood hierarchy, unification is more important than ever. His father must see that. His father before the illness probably would, he can’t help but think. 

A commotion outside his office pulls him from his frustrated musings and he throws his quill down and rises quickly from his seat, the doors flying open before he even reaches them. The first thing to catch his eye is a tall man dressed in distinctly muggle clothing, clinging to a suitcase almost the size of the desk he is standing by. His colleague, Ten, looks tiny in comparison and Doyoung can’t help the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

“I swear I didn’t know that,” the tall man says, loud enough to give Doyoung a headache right off the bat, but he still makes a note of his thick, lazy american accent. 

“Do you know how many smugglers we catch on muggle airports? Last year was a record twenty-seven idiots!” Ten shouts back, more riled up than Doyoung has seen him in a long time. 

“I’m not a smuggler okay, my parents are no-majs and they aren’t all too comfortable with magic so sometimes when I travel I use muggle transportation so they won’t worry.” The american stumbles between the terms, but he seems to have found his calm again as he loosens his grip on the handle of his suitcase and slumps the tiniest bit. His voice is a lot more pleasant at a lower volume. 

“Your parents think airplanes are safer than portkeys?” Ten asks, easily distracted as he always is and Doyoung is about to turn and head back to his solitary office when something odd catches his attention. Ten’s hand resting on his desk, tracing repetitive patterns in the dark wood, matched with the hint of an excited gleam in his eyes. He won’t claim to know Ten personally, but he knows him at work and he knows him in anger, and concentration and cold-hearted upholdment of the law, but he doesn’t know the Ten standing fifteen feet in front of him now, interrogating someone who should be a suspect. He can’t say what it is, but his gut tells him something is off. And he will get to the bottom of it, to hell with the consequences. 


	3. Jaehyun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna post this yesterday but then suddenly the day was over i don't know what happened  
anyway, johnjae is a past thing in this fic, but i wasn't sure if i should tag it...if you think i should then feel free to yell it at me
> 
> hope you enjoy the chapter as we slowly(heh) start getting into the real action

_ “Do you think the moon could be an egg?” _

_ The reeds grow thick by the riverbed; rubbing noisily against each other in the breeze, and they make his calves itch every time they brush his skin. The sun is scorching in the sky.  _

_ “Do you think the moon could be an egg? Jaehyun?” The lazy, american drawl of his companion is even lazier in the intense heat of the day. Even the slowly flowing river does little to cool them down.  _

_ “No, I don’t,” he answers, taking his time to pull his mind away from the red algae he is sifting his hands through, to whatever nonsensical thing Johnny has to say this time. How can the moon be an egg? _

_ “Why not? I can easily turn this rock into a rubber duck, why can’t the moon be an egg?” _

_ He straightens his back, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat and wiping his wet hands on his shorts. Rubber ducks, what’s his deal with rubber ducks? Summer in the french countryside is too hot to deal with the baseless, absurd and sometimes existential thoughts running through Johnny’s mind. The grecian ruins by the Aegean sea at least had him more equipped at handling their contradicting nature.  _

_ “Magic is a force in nature, the moon is a big rock in the sky. I don’t see the correlation,” he sighs quietly, resting his hands on his hips and blinking sweat out of his eyes. Johnny is resting under the shade of a cork oak, leaning against its twisted trunk and fanning himself with the days newspaper.  _

_ “You know the moon isn’t actually in the sky—” “You know exactly what I meant.” _

_ Johnny is quiet, quiet in the way Jaehyun knows he’s upset. He was maybe a bit snappy, the heat exhausting his mind as much as his body.  _

_ “I’m done here,” he says, impulsively as he’s nowhere near done for the day, but it’s nice to see how Johnny lights up at his words. Wading into the river towards him, Johnny gives him no time to change his mind as he lifts him by the waist and all but throws him over his shoulder, upsetting his hat so it falls from his head. _

_ “Johnny, my hat,” he complains, reaching fruitlessly for it as it lands silently on the water surface.  _

_ “It’s not going anywhere,” Johnny says and hoists him more firmly into his arms, and Jaehyun watches as his hat is caught in the reeds and knows he is right. Still, he watches it, how it dips in the gentle current and soaks water until it grows dark while Johnny carries him up the slope to flatter plains and their blessedly cool, enchanted tent.  _

_ “Do I get to pick the activity now?” Johnny asks with a mischievous smile and his hands are roaming all over Jaehyun’s back as soon as he is placed on his feet. Jaehyun doesn’t answer, unless his fingers in Johnny’s hair and their mouths pushing enthusiastically together is an answer.  _

_ “Do you think the moon could be an egg? Jaehyun?” _

He doesn’t wake with a start. Sure, one moment he’s dreaming and the next he’s looking at the blue, vaulted ceiling above his bed, but it’s a soft transition. Gentle, in the way a memory is when his feelings around it are in conflict. He misses Johnny, misses the time they spent together that year in southern europe, but as he stretches in the sheets and feels them slip away from him when he rolls out of bed that feeling goes away. Left in his dreams like everything else about his past lover.

The floor is cold under his feet, but the tub is already filled with water, steam rising from the milky surface, and Jaehyun sinks into its embrace with a content sigh. He hasn’t had a dream about Johnny since he arrived at Hogwarts. Maybe he has been too busy, with curriculum and papers to grade, and his research and the fact he is being blackmailed by the potions professor. Whatever the reason, he has been grateful for their absence. Thinking about Johnny still hurts, and makes him angrier than anything else ever has. He had been of the opinion that they had something special, but clearly Johnny didn’t see it that way.

_ Jaehyun, sweetheart, I’m sorry for leaving like this _ .

He doesn’t remember what the letter said after that, but even so much is too much for his bruised heart. Why must it always come back to haunt him? Such a little sentence. 

A loud pop makes him jump, water sloshing over the edge of the bronze tub, and he automatically reaches for his wand before his mind catches up with the present and realises it’s only Rola. 

“So sorry Master Jaehyun. Rola didn’t mean to startle you,” the house elf’s squeaky voice rings in the spacious room, and Rola has no more finished talking before he sticks three fingers in Jaehyun’s hair and guides a decanter to pour water over his head. 

“Rola!” he exclaims, laughing and promptly choking as water continues to pour over his head and into his mouth. 

“Sorry Master Jaehyun,” the house elf says, though he certainly doesn’t sound very sorry. But it’s not like Jaehyun minds, the impish elf is probably the closest thing he has to a friend, and he enjoys his company immensely. 

He hadn’t started out with the intention of such luxury as having someone wash his hair for him in the morning. Rola’s only job consisted of filling his bathtub before he woke, and that was hardly a job at all, as Jaehyun has been told several times. Washing his hair was no hardship either, Rola assured him, as he had an absurd obsession with hair, probably from not having any himself, and  _ Master Jaehyun has the nicest hair amongst humans. _

Jaehyun is not one to say no, whether the question is about daily favours or sharing a small space with a stranger he invited into his bed one night and then every night for the following year. 

One day Johnny was someone living his life completely separate from Jaehyun, and the next they were both living their lives so entwined with each other, it was hard to imagine them any other way. It was sudden, and rushed and both good and bad at the same time, and just as Jaehyun had settled in his new existence of being apart of something other than himself, Johnny left, in the exact same manner he came. It was like a shock to his system, and Jaehyun doesn’t hold it against himself that he has yet to move passed it. Maybe he loved Johnny, maybe he liked his exuberant energy and how good he was in bed, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t think about his feelings for the older man anymore, it would be useless to do so now, but Johnny was a big part of his life at a time when he had very little else in it. And Johnny always left a big imprint everywhere he went, so why would Jaehyun be any different?

“Rola was told Master Jaehyun has a visitor waiting for him in the Great Hall,” Rola says with his knobbly fingers buried in Jaehyun’s thick hair, startling him once again from his thoughts. Thankfully his reaction this time is restrained to only a slight jerk of his thigh muscles. 

“Visitor?” he repeats, dumbfounded. He can’t think of anyone who would visit him on a regular day, much less on Christmas Day in the snowy Highlands of Scotland.

“Rola knows nothing more Master Jaehyun,” Rola says, masterly diverting any further questions Jaehyun might have. And he has a lot of them.

It is with no small amount of dread Jaehyun stands, partially hidden behind one of the large doors to the Great Hall, his eyes fixed on the narrow, and incredibly familiar figure of his best friend.  _ Former _ best friend. What is Mark even doing here? It’s been almost two years since they last spoke, since Jaehyun last saw the younger man, and his sudden presence in the castle has taken him completely off guard. The fact that Mark is here on this day, as well, is no small matter. Jaehyun knows how important Christmas is to Mark and his muggle family. 

So enraptured by his own thoughts and worries, Jaehyun doesn’t notice when Mark turns around, only made aware by the sound of his voice in the quiet hall.

“Jaehyun?” he calls, questioningly but not too hesitant. Mark has always been the more confident one between them. Not prone to overthinking like Jaehyun.

Raising a hand in a half-assed wave, Jaehyun slinks around the door, gripping the edge tightly in his fingers and nods in acknowledgement while keeping the large space between them. His face is studiously blank, an effort to keep from Mark the turmoil coursing through his head and stomach. He can’t deny that he has missed Mark, but he also can’t forget what Mark said to him on their parting day. Those words still hurt.

“Silence is the way to go, huh? I saw your mom,” Mark barrels on, giving Jaehyun no time to react to either of his statements. “Why aren’t you with her? Why aren’t you spending Christmas—yuletide—with her?” Mark corrects himself without faltering, but this time Jaehyun wouldn't have cared. After all this time, that’s what Mark wants to talk about?

“Eighteen months and you come back only to scold me some more?” he finally finds his voice, clenching his hands into fists and speaking slowly to make sure he doesn’t stutter even once. “Fuck off.”

Mark could never understand, not with his perfect little family living in their quaint little cottage in a picturesque little town on the east coast of Scotland. 

“I love her too,” Mark says, so quiet Jaehyun almost misses it. But it’s clearly not the same, because Mark was able to visit, to look her in the face and be happy, if only for that moment, and Jaehyun couldn’t. 

“How was she?” he asks, subdued and twisting the worn fabric of his sweater between his fingers. 

“She was good, real good. She’d made her butterscotch pudding. I brought you some,” Mark points at a yellow box on the table beside them, sloppily wrapped with a green and red striped tie. 

“I didn’t tell her I was coming to see you,” he continues, and Jaehyun can hear the hint of steel in his voice and just like that, his hackles are raised once more. “I didn’t want to upset her.” Before responding to Mark’s well-placed dig, Jaehyun takes three quick steps to the box and picks it up, clutches it tightly to his chest in case Mark changes his mind and decides he isn’t worthy of his mothers dessert after all.

“You can’t come here after a… after all this time and presume to know  _ anything _ ,” his voice passes tightly out his mouth, the force applied to keep his stutter at bay giving his words a hoarse, growly quality. 

“You can’t stand seeing her like this?!” Mark raising his voice catches him off-guard and he stumbles backwards in a massive flinch. “You know how  _ fucking selfish _ that is!”

Selfish, that’s just what he said last time. 

“She’s sick Jaehyun! And she needs you and if you keep this up you’re going to end up regretting it in the end!” 

“Because she’s going to die?!” Jaehyun pushes back before Mark could even take a breath. “Because eventually she’s not going to be here anymore and I’ll regret not spending time with her while I could? Is that how you want me to think?!

Because I won’t, I will _ never _ give up on her like that!”

Silence echoes in the vaulted room with the absence of their loud voices, and Jaehyun thinks the box in his arms should be crushed from how tightly he is clutching it, but it is not. His mother must have charmed it, she has always been so good at charms. 

He remembers when he was little and he still had nightmares that would wake him in the middle of the night, and the softly glowing lights all around his bed, in shapes of butterflies and crocuses and delicate daisies, would blanket him in his mother’s magic. And the games they used to play, the tea parties and quidditch games with all his toys, animated with a flick of his mother’s wand; his mother’s charms were the best magic he knew. 

He doesn’t know how long they have been standing there, somber in the way only death can cause, before Mark leaves. The way his mind works, swallowing him in thought at the most inopportune time, it could have been ages before Mark’s hand lands softly on his shoulder and his words shake him loose.

“Enjoy the pudding, it’s delicious,” he says, whispers really, and then he is gone, out the doors and off the grounds and far from Jaehyun once again. And Jaehyun wants to reach out, to tell him to stay, to make an effort, but he never does.

He eats dinner in the Great Hall with the teachers and students still in the castle, but every other hour finds him in the greenhouses, taking care of his plants in the biting winter cold. He makes sure his aloe vera plants get their needed sunlight despite the constant gray skies, shifts his potted bitterroots around so they have ample space between them and then moves them to an entirely different greenhouse when he is not content, and he drains the moisture from a sandy piece of dirt in the very back of greenhouse six to propagate a new planting of sage, all the while smoking cigarette after cigarette of his home-grown wizweed. So he’s a little stressed. He has plenty of reason to be.

In a matter of days Professor Qian will be back and he has yet to decide what to do about his request. Or threat really, but he prefers not to think of it like that. Prefers to imagine he actually has a choice about it. 

Professor Qian was right that it would be easy for him to acquire the aconite; while he has precious few friends, he has many contacts in the world of herbology and plenty of those of a less than savory character. He wrote the note requesting a plant of aconite several days ago and it sits safely in his desk drawer, ready to be sent by owl, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He doesn’t know either, if it is a halting burst of morality or simply his contempt at being manipulated in this way that keeps his feet from walking him right up to the owlery. It would definitely be the easier thing to do. 

Sighing loudly into the empty room, he grabs blindly beside him for the vase overflowing with yew and clutches it to his chest and once more braves the icy winds outside, huddling into his coat as he runs to the castle entrance. He slips through the partially open door behind greenhouse two and takes the narrow staircase inside at a run. The hallway spreads out before him, warm and echoing with Hogwarts ghostly christmas carolers, and the change of temperature sends shivers down his back. He really hopes Rola has done as he asked and brought supper to his quarters; with how frozen his legs are after spending all day in the greenhouses—that are for the most part only slightly warmer than the outside—he doesn’t want to walk another step. Even for food. 

“Pumpkin fizz,” he says to the painting of Olwenna, a famous welsh herbologist from the seventeenth century, and waits for her to throw a scattering of purple petals at him before swinging aside to reveal his private chambers. The room smells of warm sweet-potatoes and ginger and resting on the small table in front of the fireplace is a bowl of soup, a platter of bread and grapes and a goblet from his own cabinets, already filled to the brim with firewhiskey. Rola, as always, have gone above and beyond what is necessary for him. 

He doesn’t bother with changing his clothes, only shrugs out of his coat and lets it float to a hook beside the entrance before he walks to the fireplace and throws a handful of floo powder on the faintly burning logs. He had meant to floo his mother before dinner, but he can only guess Mark’s words shook him more than he would like to admit as he has avoided even the thought of family all day, preferring to busy himself with physical labour. 

“Edgewater Cottage,” he enunciates into the green flames and in the next second he is looking at the yellow kitchen in his childhood home, empty but for the screechsnap limping across the floor, its ear-splitting screech echoing between the walls. He doesn’t call out—certain he won’t be heard over the racket—and only waits for his mother who is sure to come running any second. Back in his quarters, the plate of bread and grapes knocks against his hand and he absentmindedly takes a loaf and stuffs it whole into his mouth just as the sound of quick footsteps sound on the deck outside. 

“Oh Billy, I’m so sorry,” his mother’s voice is almost as loud as the screechsnap and he watches fondly as her feet move quickly through the room, her skirt swinging with every step as she picks up the downed pot first and the wailing plant next. “Jaehyun! I’ll be right with you honey,” she calls and then she is gone again, but he can still hear her in the backroom, fixing  _ Billy _ a new pot. This time with the correct amount of dragon dung manure.

When she finally kneels in front of the grate, she is cradling the pot in the crook of her arm and is petting the purple stem of the semi-sentient plant, soothing it like she would him when his nightmares ran too deep. 

“Hi honey, how you been?” she asks, reaching out with a hand as if to touch his face. She looks good, Mark wasn’t lying; she’s done her hair and the light blue dress she is wearing is one of her best. The sight of her glowing face puts his mind finally at ease. 

“I’m good Ma, I’m sorry I’m not there,” he starts but she brushes him off, shaking her head so her bangs come loose. 

“I went through two years of you flitting about the continent, as long as I know where you are, that’s good enough for me,” she laughs and he is sure she meant to comfort him, but he only feels worse. He knows he hasn’t been the best son; especially since his father left he should have given more of his time to her, so much more than he has, and he honestly doesn’t know why he made himself so scarce to begin with. 

“Has dad been by?” he asks to purposely change the subject, thinking back to the letter on his nightstand that had arrived late the previous evening. His mother smiles, dim but genuine, and slumps further on the floor, sitting on her legs. 

“You just missed him actually. He had some news, though he might want to tell you himself,” she plays with the frills on her dress while Jaehyun clears his throat, suspecting what the news contained and not sure how to breach the topic with his mother.

“I already know,” he says quietly. His father had been very candid in his letter, told him all about his new home—a not too big not too small apartment in the middle of London—and his partner,  _ Dale of the Wizengamot _ , who is his husband now, and their plans for adopting a little girl from Kenya. He hadn’t thought about the letter all day, though not from any effort on his part to forget it. Any news of his father had, as of late, developed the rather callous tendency to go in one ear and out the other.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” his mother’s quiet voice falls around him and he can almost imagine he is sitting right next to her, her hand on his cheek and his head on her shoulder. He hasn’t thought about it enough to know whether he is alright or not. He rather feels nothing about any of it, which is not what he would have ever expected. When he was younger he always asked, all but begged, his parents for a sibling, but now it doesn’t feel like that’s what he is getting at all. 

“I don’t know Ma, are you?” he asks in turn and they fall silent. They shared their thoughts about all this in the beginning and there is no reason to stir up feelings just to repeat words that have already been spoken. That’s not to say he doesn’t still feel bad, as much now as he did when his father packed his things and left, telling him with a smile—because he was truly happy—that he never would have found the courage to follow his heart if not for him. It’s the only time he has regretted coming out when he did. And then he feels bad for begrudging his father his happiness. 

“He showed me a picture, she’s an adorable little girl. Muggle father and witch mother, I presume they’re both dead, poor girl.” She raises a hand to her mouth, quietly contrite and not looking at him, and he wonders if he is the one who made them so afraid of death that they fear even the word. 

“Did you go to auntie’s at all today?” he asks after a moment in which she stretches to put the potted screechsnap on the mantel, muttering to herself as it almost tips over all over again. She smiles when she looks at him again, but he can see the haze falling over her eyes and he isn’t particularly surprised when she turns to look beside her before speaking.

“Yes, we had dinner together, rather early. Your grangran was there as well, though she’s asleep now,” she says and smiles at the empty rocking chair in the corner. It’s the same chair his grandmother used to sit in day in and day out when he was a child, but it has been empty for years now, ever since she passed away. 

“That’s good Ma, maybe you should get some rest too,” he says just as the kitchen door opens in the back of the room. When he can see nothing else, he knows it’s Gin, their old house elf. He is sure the little, wrinkly creature must have a sixth sense about his mother’s fits and he is glad for it as he watches the elf tip-toeing around the table to wrap her spindly arm around his mother’s shoulders. 

“Come Miss, time for bed. Hello Master Jaehyun,” she says in her squeaky voice and Jaehyun smiles, grateful that his mother isn’t entirely alone.

“Love you Ma,” he says and his eyes sting a little as his mother lifts a hand towards him and cups the flaming image of his face in her palm.

“Love you sweetheart,” she whispers and he would think nothing was wrong if she didn’t bend to kiss the cheek of a woman only she can see on her way out of the room.

  
  


_ Yuta _

_ I hope this note finds you well. _

_ I’ve found myself in need of aconite, _

_ The whole flower if you may, _

_ As soon as possible. _

_ Jaehyun  _

The following day finds him in magical London, strolling aimlessly about Diagon Alley before sitting down for a midday drink at The Red Fletcher. He left the castle that day with something of a plan, but it was blown wide open the second he stepped foot on the cobbled street and now he figures the only purpose of even going was to get away for awhile. He had sent the note off that morning, sneaking around like a thief in the light of dawn, hoping no one else was awake to see him. He had thought he would feel at least some guilt at what he was doing, or perhaps even shame at having been blackmailed in such a way, but watching the owl fly away had only given him relief. At least now he was no longer burdened by the weight of morality, as any illusions of that has already been blown right out of the water.

Taking another swig of his beer, he contemplates seeking out Yuta to pick up the plant himself, certain it would be safer to smuggle it back in his own hands, but he quickly abandons the idea. He has met a good dozen of his students already, and couldn’t possibly risk any of them seeing him slipping into Knockturn Alley. Not so soon after his appointment. Not that he thinks visiting Knockturn Alley is in itself too indicative of a person’s nature, but he finds himself far more invested in what people think of him now, as a teacher, than he ever did as a student.

Running a hand through his hair with a sigh, he freezes as it ends up at the back of his neck, and as he traces the inked shape on his skin he imagines it is as sensitive now, as on the day it was made, as the memory comes back to him like a moving picture stamped on his eyes.

_ “I’m not sure about this Doyoung,” he curled his fingers into his pant leg, but was betrayed by his own curiosity as he couldn’t help looking around the other boy’s body to where the ageing woman was branding his skin in black ink. Doyoung smiled at him, sitting perfectly still with the barest grimace tugging at his eyes. _

_ “It doesn’t hurt that bad, it’s more an itch really,” he said, and Jaehyun inched a little closer to the edge of his seat so their knees knocked and took Doyoung’s hands in his.  _

_ “You should get one, you said you wanted to,” Doyoung urged and, when Jaehyun was close enough, tilted his head to press their mouths together in a brief kiss.  _

_ “I wouldn't even know where to get it,” he whined, sparing a glance to the woman tattooing Doyoung’s back and looking around her tiny, dark shop before his eyes were drawn to Doyoung’s fingers tracing small patterns into the dip of his hip.  _

_ “I’m not taking my trousers off!” he hissed and Doyoung laughed—laughed—before kissing him again. _

_ “You should get it on the back of your neck,” he whispered against his lips and oh if he had ever experienced something as sensual as that moment, he very much doubted.  _

The raucous of a drunken man falling into the table next to him draws him from the memory with the effect of a bucket of ice water, drenching him in the sounds and smells of the old pub once again. The man slurs something unintelligible that might have been an apology, but Jaehyun only waves him off, pushing his own half-full glass to the edge of his table for the drunkard to do with as he pleases. He can’t stay any longer, the smoky air suddenly choking him where before it was almost pleasant. 

“Why am I thinking about you?” he mumbles to himself on his way out, ignoring the shouts of “why wouldn't you!” from the shrunken heads hanging by the door. He hasn’t been so fixated on Doyoung since they were in school, when books and scrolls were slowly switched out for making out against the bookcases in the very back of the library. They hadn’t survived past graduation, not that it was really that much of a surprise, he imagines only a precious few could spend the rest of their life with their first love. But the memories are there, stronger than ever, and for the first time in years his skin itches with the want to cover it in some thing’s likeness. Even though he knows, it won’t be the same if it is not Doyoung’s precise hand crafting the design. 

The back of his neck tingles and he wraps a hand around his own nape before it occurs to him that it’s no longer his skin crawling with memories, but his magic squirming just under the surface, alerting him. Deep in thought, he has wandered into a deserted sidestreet with nothing but empty shop windows and a charred brick wall surrounding him, and at the mouth of the alley, is a tall figure shrouded rather inconveniently in shadows. 

Fingers resting on the hem of his left sleeve he doesn’t pull his wand yet, but takes a stance facing the stranger in case he has to. He can’t sense any untoward magic in the air and the stranger’s hands are empty and there is something about the shape of them, but he can’t quite put his finger on what. 

“Jaehyun?” the voice rings seemingly in the air around them though most probably just inside his head as his blood rushes and his body loses all sense of feeling, leaving him a mannequin frozen in the street. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was trying to think of what to say and I didn’t want to lose you,” the voice grows louder as the form—so blurry now and he’s not sure if he is crying or losing consciousness—moves closer and out of the shadows.

“I didn’t mean to follow you like some creep,” Johnny says, because Merlin and Morgana it’s Johnny, and Jaehyun doesn’t know what to do. He wants to run, to cease to exist, to spell his mouth closed so he doesn’t say anything stupid; he wants to  _ hurt _ Johnny, because he’s not allowed to come back like this when he least expects it. It can’t be allowed.

But just like that morning, when he sent his owl off with the note for Yuta, what he tells himself to do is very rarely what he does. 


	4. Doyoung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuta<3
> 
> (Doyoung is not actually into Irene, he just has some sexuality issues)

He spends the next few months watching Ten, keeping tabs on his cases, scouring his mission reports with the excuse of being his superior, if barely, but as the snow falls and the year turns he is no closer to finding any type of lead. He doesn’t even know what he is looking for; knows nothing other than that his instincts are rarely wrong and that he saw something odd pass between Ten and that American who thought planes were safer than portkeys. He knows Ten has noticed something is off as he hasn’t said a word to him past professional courtesy in weeks; a big change from the constant flirting the buoyant auror has subjected him to through the years. 

Stepping around a grumpily mumbling elf, he moves a finger in the air at the book floating in front of his face and it turns a page before dipping gently out of the way as a flying memo zips past down the long corridor. On any other day, Jules Verne’s accounts of the ridiculousness of muggles would be sufficient in holding his attention, but today even they fall short. Which is why, he supposes, he chose the book he did—even if he grabbed it at random from his bookcase—as _ De la terre à la lune _ is far from the most exciting of the series. As it is, he could do with a little less excitement as his heart has played a staccato of nerves in his chest since the morning, and doesn’t seem to be smoothing over any time soon.

He’s not even doing anything out of sorts, for Circe’s sake! It’s not like he is breaking into his department head’s office and stealing his colleagues personal file or something else illegal, he is merely visiting the archive which he is perfectly in his right to do as a high ranking employee of the Magical Law Department. Of course, what he hopes to find in the archive is a little out of sorts, though he is certain he’s not the first person to investigate a fellow auror for fraud. And he has been investigating Ten, for close to three months, and scouring the archive for information he has been unable to find in recent reports, both those written by Ten and those of his team, is a natural second step. What has kept him back is the knowledge that once he does, his investigation will no longer be his secret. Irene will know, and she is certain to come asking questions. But really, at this point, he has no other choice. 

Looking furtively up and down the corridor like some common thief, he leans his back against a door on the left side, as nondescript as every other door lining the walls, and hastily pushes it open. He exhales the breath stuck in his lungs only when the door closes behind him with a muted thump, and inhales the dusty air of the archive as the shell-shaped sconces on the walls flicker to life. 

Shelves, stretching from floor to ceiling and so far he can’t see where they end in front of him, fill the room in rows interspersed with tiny, rickety desks and padded chairs. The longer he stands there the more sconces come alight, coating the room in a dim, orange light, not at all good enough to read by. Not that he plans to linger.

“Leechaiyapornkul, Chittaphon Ten,” he enunciates, hoping the magic on the archive is clever enough to know what he wants as he is certain he mispronounced at least part of the name. The shelves lined with beige folders of increasing age shake as magic courses through them, picking out only the ones most relevant to his search and bringing the files to him. It doesn’t take too long—Ten has only been with them a little less than two years—and in a matter of seconds his hands are full of pergament and the room is as quiet as it was before.

He slips from the room as stealthily as he can, unable to shake the notion that he is doing something wrong. With the hopefully incriminating evidence pressed closely to his chest and his copy of Jules Verne floating loyally in his wake, he hurries down the corridor and through the open pen of the auror department to his own sectioned off office in the very back. It’s still early so there aren’t a lot of people already in, and most of the early comers are gathered around the coffee pot sharing quiet conversation. 

“Morning Mr.Kim,” one calls out, a young girl fresh from the auror training program called Jisoo, and he waves a distracted greeting back. He isn’t sure exactly how he still remembers her name as his ability to process familiarity has severely lessened since he started working at the Ministry. Better to treat them all as passing faces when for a lot of them that is exactly what their fate will be. 

He locks the door behind him, not for the first time grateful that his promotion afforded him his own office, and spreads the many files out on his desk. They don't all fit and he upends more than an empty coffee cup in his haste, but he spares the mess he made only a flick of a wrist. He has more important things on his mind than the fate of yesterday's departmental memos. 

With a thought, the yellowed files arrange themselves in order of age and, taking a deep breath of coffee-scented air, he starts at the very beginning with Ten's auror training results. 

He's gotten through three months of Ten's employment, as well as five cups of coffee and two rounds of insistent knocking from Mark when Irene finds him. She doesn't share Mark's respect when it comes to his privacy and the doors blast open in front of her, but closes oddly silently the moment she has passed the threshold. Their eyes meet across the room, his hands frozen in the air with a long roll of parchment held delicately between four fingers as she stares him down. 

"What are you up to Kim?" she asks finally, resting one small hand on her hip and setting her feet firmly on the floor. She does these things to make her look more authoritative, but she doesn't need to, she's his boss and he has never doubted that. Though maybe he could have told her as much. 

"I received a complaint from Ten last month about you, but I told him he had no grounds to make it as you had, as of yet, not done anything out of sorts for your position. Tell me I wasn’t wrong to take your side.”

He drops his gaze to the spread of parchment on his desk and sighs loudly out his nose. He doesn’t know what to say to her. There is no need to question the legality of his actions; the morality on the other hand is certainly spotty.

“I had a hunch,” he starts off carefully, making sure to look her in the eye. “I couldn’t _ not _ follow through, not with what’s at stake.”

She holds his gaze, staring him down in a way only a woman can do, until finally—unexpectedly—she unwinds. Walking slowly on clicking heels over the floor, she stops at the side of his desk and runs her fingers over parchment rolls before taking a slow, measured breath and holding it.

“You suspect there’s a mole in our department,” she says, her voice almost a whisper. He doesn’t want to say it; while he wants desperately to finally have a solid clue to who the _ Moonshiner _ can be, he really wishes he is wrong about Ten. But experience tells him that his instincts are rarely wrong.

“Yes,” he whispers and when she lifts a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp he feels it. Her hands flit restlessly around for several seconds, brushing the files as if clearing them of dust and even touching his shoulder before she pulls back abruptly. 

“You have to stop, you can’t keep doing this so obviously when he has already caught on. If Ten really is a mole then we can’t afford him packing up and leaving before we know more. Put it away for now, I’ll come find you after the day is through.”

She takes one last, long look at the files on his desk before retracing her steps to the door where she turns.

“You know what this means, right?” she asks and he nods his head with a grim smile tugging at his mouth. If there is indeed a mole amongst them, then there is no saying he’s alone. The entire department could be compromised for all they know, depending how high up they’ve gotten. And England has only recently felt the effects of the _ Moonshiner’s _ work; they could very well be sitting on the fuse of an international incident. 

“Irene,” his voice stops her just as she is about to open the doors, “I have no proof. Why do you believe me?”

She looks at him and something in her face seems softer, and he notices suddenly—unavoidably—how very pretty she is. 

“You’re an exceptional auror, Doyoung. I’ve long since come to trust your instincts,” she says and with a steadying breath she is gone, letting in the noise from the pen for a moment before the doors close softly behind her. 

He takes an hour for lunch and floos to the Leaky Cauldron. Normally bustling with Ministry workers at this time of day, the pub is strangely quiet so soon after the New Year. He reckons most wizards are enjoying a slow start to the year, the Ministry hallways were certainly echoing with their absence. As it is, he is glad for it as he sets his sights on the person he wished to find. 

Tucked into a corner, reading the _ Prophet _ and eating what looks like a particularly scorched loaf of pumpkin pull-apart bread, the owner of _ The Horned Violet _ seems to stand out like a sore thumb while simultaneously melt into the background. Their hair, long and black, but shimmering with purple stars when the light hits it just right, is as fascinating to him now as every other time he has seen it. 

He makes his way to them, winding around empty tables until he stops in front of the one in the corner and then he waits a second for his presence to be acknowledged. Dark, crescent eyes look up at him in question and he summons a smile.

“Yuta. Do I still call you Yuta?” he says as he pulls a chair out and makes to sit, waiting only long enough for Yuta to lift a hand in allowance. 

“Mr.Kim! Sit down sit down auror, please, be my guest. And yes!” Yuta says in their usual manner, exuberant while still maintaining a low volume. “What can I do for you today?”

“Nothing, except maybe keep me company while I eat,” he says, knowing he won’t be believed for even a second.

“I don’t believe that, Mr.Kim,” Yuta laughs, proving him right, “you always want something. I wonder, are you like that in your personal life too, or is it just us work beaus who are treated to such dedication?” 

“You would like to know,” he scoffs with a smile to match Yuta’s sparkling face. Yuta winks at him in reply and he won’t deny the thought comes to him; to have that hair spread out on his pillow, or slipping over his skin in throes of passion. He imagines it’d feel like silk, or even smoother, something watery. 

“Let me order first, I’m famished,” he says and turns to acknowledge the impatient notepad and quill floating beside their table and puts his order of vegetable stew and a bottle of gillywater to it. Yuta watches him with a quirky smile while pulling bites off their loaf and he lifts an eyebrow in preemptive reproach.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Yuta grins, showing off a row of perfectly straight teeth. “It could happen you know, if you’d ever deign to meet me sometime other than lunch.”

Yuta leans over the table, out of the shadows, and he can’t stop his eyes from flicking down to their chest, drawn by the new contours of it under Yuta’s form-fitting, black shirt. Yuta follows his gaze and snorts.

“Like what you see? They came to about a month ago, I’ve been experimenting with sizes.” The tone is joking, and there is a smile on Yuta’s face, but he can see it when their eyes meet that it’s all a farce. Yuta is worried what he’ll think, worried that he will somehow disapprove of them. So he gives them a smile, and looks them directly in the eye when he says, “they look nice, you look nice.”

It has never been put into as many words, but he knows Yuta respects him, that his opinion matters to them, but he sees it now as Yuta’s face lights up in their biggest smile yet. Before they can tread into unfamiliar territory however, his food arrives, landing on the table with force that makes the soup slosh against the rim of the bowl, but nothing spills. It is with a silent agreement that they eat before discussing business, emptying bowls and plates with nothing but the rustling of Yuta’s paper sounding between them.

“So, auror,” Yuta begins once the table is cleared, “what do you need my expertise for this time?” Instead of answering, he pulls a folder from his satchel and slides it over for them to read. It is his own accounts of the hallucinogen _ mescaline _ and the cacti it can be found in, information he has drawn from books but know very little else about. 

“Can you tell me something about this I don’t already know?” he asks once Yuta has had time to read it at least twice.

“It’s not a potion ingredient,” they say, pointing at his notes about its uses.

“Mescaline is used in its pure form for well, entertainment purposes. You remember last year, there was that whole debacle with wizards at a muggle party throwing their wands around—I’m sure the Ministry had fun with that—but no one was charged because they claimed to have been fighting off all kinds of things, specifically dementors? 

Word on the street was they’d gotten their hands on some really potent, plant-based hallucinogen. No one could name it, but I’d bet my bottom sickle it was exactly this,” Yuta finishes by poking their finger in the middle of the parchment. 

“But you can’t get this in England?” he asks to make sure, referring to the different cacti he has written down that is said to produce the alkaloid. Yuta shakes their head, but the look on their face is not very comforting.

“No, but I don’t think importing it is that hard. It’s a harmless cactus,” they shrug and leans back against the uneven stone wall. He doesn’t know what more to say; he had been hoping Yuta could give him some insight, but it seems he knows more in this instance. Mescaline may not be a registered potion ingredient, but someone has found a use for it anyway and if he wants to find out _ who _ then he first needs to know _ why. _

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, Doyoung. My area of expertise is plants used for potion making, outside of that I’m afraid my knowledge is limited.” Yuta looks genuinely apologetic, but he shakes them off with a smile. He is still glad he came.

“You know though, you should get in touch with the new Herbology professor at Hogwarts. He’s a proper expert, and he’s been all over the continent doing research on rare plants. He might have come across something,” Yuta looks excited to have remembered this bit, but all it does to Doyoung is send a chill down his spine. 

“You probably went to school together, he’s only a year younger than us,” Yuta continues and he breaks them off with a strained smile. “Yeah, I know him.”

He doesn’t quite know what to feel at the thought of Jaehyun, much less the prospect of seeing him again after all this time. It’s not like they parted on bad terms, but they did so with a promise to keep in touch and they haven’t. Though, it was a mutual slight, so maybe Jaehyun won’t be upset to see him.

“I’ll do that,” he says, pulling at the lapels of his jacket as he prepares to stand. “Thank you, really. You’re always good help.”

Yuta salutes him with a playful smile that he returns and then he makes his way to the fireplace to floo back to his office, hoping he’ll come across another clue that will lead him back to Yuta, and their beautiful hair, before too long. 

“I expected it to be more green,” Irene says as she settles on the edge of a chair in his parlour, looking around the room. It’s more blue than green, though still dark, with yellow accents. “House loyalty seemed like something that would matter to you.”

She’s not entirely wrong, but green has never been his favourite colour. He gives her a brief smile as he takes a seat across from her and tries to come up with a way to dispel the tension in the room. 

“Tea?” he asks when nothing else comes to mind and she nods with a polite smile tinted with relief. Having something to occupy ones hands does wonders for awkwardness, he has learned. 

He snaps his fingers and a silver and lilac tea set appear in midair, already pouring steaming hot tea into two cups. “Milk?” he asks with a nudge of the tiny creamer. The sugar bowl follows on its own, but she waves them both away. 

“Me neither,” he says and with another snap of his fingers only the teapot remains, settling carefully on the coffee table between them. Ten’s files that he had taken from the archive that morning lie in a stack to one side, but neither of them are particularly eager to open them. He reckons they are both too afraid of finding actual proof of his suspicions to start looking. Instead they drink their tea in silence, looking into separate corners of the room.

“This is ridiculous,” Irene says after a long while, making him start as she reaches for the stack of files and pulls it to the middle of the table and begins sorting through them.

“We’ll divide them; you’ll take the reports written by Ten himself, and I’ll take the ones written by his superiors. We’ll want names, recurring patterns, any untoward behaviour, but I’d say names first of all. If we can find his contacts we might be able to start mapping a network.”

They search for the most part in silence, scouring their designated reports as the stack grows smaller until it is gone at the stroke of midnight. His notes are short, not even enough to write down on paper, and with a glance he knows Irene has little more than him. 

“The reports are clean,” he says and sags regretfully into the sofa. Even if he didn’t want it, he had hoped they would find _ something _. 

“So are these,” Irene says, still staring at the last file in her hands. There is a pinched look to her face and he realises how tired he is as he is suddenly forced to stifle a yawn. “He had five team leaders and not one of them has had anything to address about his behaviour, rather they praise his obedience and haste to follow out any order given to him.”

When she puts it like that, he knows instantly what is so weird about all this. 

“No one has reports this clean.”

Her eyes fly to his and he sees realisation dawn in them as her forehead smooths. She opens her mouth to speak, but he cuts her to it.

“You know how my reports look, I have received multiple marks from every team leader I ever had. And I am not an exception. There isn’t an auror who have never gone against their superiors orders if their gut told them to.”

“Either Ten is a terrible auror, or this is all very well thought out,” she cuts in, “but he made a mistake. In trying so hard not to stand out, standing out is exactly what he does.”

They share a smile and she finally sets the last report down, brushing her fingers delicately over the rough surface of the parchment.

“There wasn’t much, but he has one contact he used repeatedly, a Hogwarts Professor,” she says, straightening her back and patting her skirt down. 

“Professor Qian, yes. Ten mentioned him by name several times. It’s worth it just to have a talk I’d say,” he waves his hand over the table and the files gather themselves in a neat stack once again and any evidence that they had spent hours in this small circle of space vanishes with a snap of his fingers. Irene is watching him with a dim sort of fascination when he finishes, but she doesn’t linger on it for long.

“I have you leading briefings Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Wednesday is no good, there is an inter-departmental meeting in the morning and I would like you to be nearby, so Thursday?” she raises her brow in question and he nods in agreement. “You can take the day if you’d like.”

She rises gracefully to her feet, plucking her discarded jacket from the back of the chair and slipping it on and then she waits expectantly for him to show her out. It’s easy to forget that Irene is only a generation away from being a pureblood, but having her in his home is a reminder that she has been raised with the same traditions and expectations as him. She never really made herself at home in his space.

“I think I’ll go in the afternoon,” he says as he helps her into her coat and then rests his hand on the doorknob. “There’ll be less students in the hallways and I won’t risk interrupting a class.” She smiles and touches his arm, as fleeting as when her hand landed on his shoulder back in his office, and then she nods at the door and he opens it for her, letting her out into the January cold. He watches her descend the stairs to the sidewalk and take a look around before she turns on the spot and disapparates.

Hogwarts castle looks bigger than he remembers, though he reckons that’s to do with this being the first time he has laid eyes on it in eight years. But it is a splendor. The sun setting over the Black Lake, painting the many windows in the grand structure with orange and pink, makes the frosty landscape almost seem warm. 

He had sent an owl to the headmistress at the beginning of the week, informing her of his visit and the intention behind it, and while he gave no indication to her that she should, he dearly hopes she has kept the information to herself. He would prefer to catch Professor Qian unawares. 

The trek to the castle is made long from the snow crunching beneath his feet, but his coat keeps him pleasantly warm. It was a yuletide gift from Joy, perfectly tailored to his form, hand stitched and double-layered and protected with a near perfect heating charm. He hadn’t expected it as they have been keeping their distance since their botched engagement, but for the same reasons he sent his own gift to her he really shouldn’t have been so surprised. 

There are a few students still on the grounds and they all stop and stare as he walks by. He can remember that curiosity, and what a childlike notion it is. He stops near a group of them and clears his throat to gather their attention.

“Where can I find Professor Qian’s office?” he asks, looking at each of them in turn.

“Second floor, Sir,” the lone girl speaks up, “across the hall from the Dauphin.” He tilts his head in gratitude and stuffs his gloved hands into the pockets of his coat, pulling it tighter around himself as he hurries the rest of the way to the great entrance doors of the castle. 

The potions professors office is exactly where he was told he’d find it, a plain wooden door parallel to the painting of the unnamed Dauphin. He knocks, and then he waits. 

It’s almost a minute later that the door finally opens. In its opening stands a man much younger than he had expected, sleeves rolled up his forearms and face beaded with sweat and with an impatient look in his eyes.

“Yes?” he asks, moving restlessly on his feet. “How can I help you?”

Professor Qian sends a furtive look over his own shoulder and Doyoung can guess what has him so restless to have been disturbed, can smell it in the air; the pungent scent of a potion boiling in its cauldron. 

“Professor, my name is Doyoung Kim, I’m an auror for the International Magical Office of Law. I wondered if I could have a moment of your time, it won’t take long.”

Professor Qian doesn’t answer right away, only taps his foot and looks once more over his shoulder as his mouth draws in a grimace.

“Or, if it’s a bad time, if you could have a look at this and examine its contents then I can return in a few days?” He procures a vial from his pocket and holds it up between them, shaking it a little to make the remnants of the potion inside slosh against the glass. He can see the Professor contemplating it, but it seems they both realise the best course of action is to get this over with at once. 

“Come inside, please. Have a seat,” Professor Qian further opens the door and waves his hand at an empty chair by a large, stained desk and waves his wand at the cauldron, putting out the flames and vanishing its contents. Doyoung sits, leaning on the arm rest and stretching his legs out, hooking one ankle over the other.

“I’m sorry to call on you so late Professor, but I’m in a bind and have exhausted all my resources. _ Ten _told me you might be able to help,” he watches Professor Qian a little more closely from his relaxed perch as he mentions Ten. The man’s eyebrows raise perceptibly on his forehead, but other than that he gives no indication he believes anything is amiss. It is a rather risky move, bringing Ten into it. He has no idea whether it will gain him something, or only ensure that Ten knows he is being investigated.

“What can I help you with Mr.Kim?” Professor Qian repeats as he settles in his own chair, folding his hands over his stomach. Doyong carefully places the almost empty vial in the middle of the desk and gestures to it with an open hand before leaning back into his seat. Professor Qian picks it up after a moment of hesitation, turning it over in his hand and peering closely at the vaguely blue liquid inside.

“_ Moonshiner _” he reads the single word on the label out loud, looking at Doyoung from under his lashes. 

“You know of them?”

“Yes, by hearsay. They are regarded as a luminary of my trade, a rare feat after all this time. Of course, that doesn’t make their latest actions any less despicable,” he adds at Doyoung’s raised brow.

“Is it _ eight _ deaths now, in Britain?” he asks, but the placid smile on his face tells Doyoung more than Professor Qian probably realises. 

“Nine,” he corrects, serving a strained smile in response to the other man’s act of apathy. He has seen this charade before, the pretend misinformation, being just slightly off the mark to appear uninvested. And he knows when he is being appeased. Professor Qian is hiding _ something _ , but whether that is mere admiration for the elusive _ Moonshiner _ or his own involvement in the scheme is impossible to say at this time. 

He gestures wordlessly at the vial once more and Professor Qian turns it in his hand, bringing it up to his face for a closer look. 

“I will need a day at least to do a proper examination, is there anything in particular you’re looking for?” he asks, once again looking at Doyoung from under his lashes.

“A complete list of ingredients would be good, if you can manage that you’d be the first.” There’s no harm in buttering the man up a little; anyone who is a master at their craft desires the recognition they in their mind deserves. He can see Professor Qian is no different. 

“I’ll send you an owl when I have what you need,” Professor Qian rises with a small, theatrical bow and gestures to the door without taking his eyes off Doyoung. 

“I look forward to it,” he returns the gesture with a dip of his head and rises to his feet with all the dignity his governess instilled in him as a child. If there is one thing his pureblood upbringing has granted him, it is the poise he needs for investigative diplomacy. 

“Shall I see you out, Mr.Kim?” Professor Qian asks at the door as he holds it open for him.

“No need, I can find my way on my own.” The door slams shut after him, but he doesn’t let it bother him. Professor Qian is not the first to be happy to see him leave. No matter his intentions, when an auror comes knocking people tend to feel accused. 

He looks at the painting of the Dauphin, admires the pretty face and cherub-like blonde curls framing it and wonders who he could be. He thinks it was a gift from Beauxbatons after the second wizarding war, one amongst many.

At the stairs he finds his feet leading him up instead of down and before he can decide if he wants to stay, to take this stroll down memory lane, he is stepping off the staircase and turning into the third floor corridor. He walks slowly through the long hallways, runs his hands along the banister of the grand staircase and looks into the Great Hall from a distance. There are still students at the tables, doing homework, and a few teachers at the head table. Jaehyun isn’t among them. He walks the bridge to the east wing, raising his wand to shield himself from the sudden snowflurry that hides everything but the lights in the castle windows.

He had a favourite place, a window nook in a spire in the east wing with a sprawling view of the mountains that he always preferred over the lake and its unknown depths. He suspects that is where his subconscious sought to guide him, though he never gets so far. His feet have barely touched the landing on the first floor when a voice, familiar yet strange, calls his name. Not far from him, a little down the corridor next to a statue of a rearing centaur, is Jaehyun, even more beautiful in his thick burgundy outfit than Doyoung remembers him ever being.

And he is smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dojae finally meeting again wow


	5. Jaehyun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a week late but it was christmas and all my brain cells were busy with beating my brother at board games so...  
at least dojae can finally look at each other

It slips from his mouth uninhibited by thought. The smile saying it brings to his face is involuntary as well, but the feeling of warmth settling in his chest is unmistakable. 

“Doyoung,” he says, and he is happy to see him. For all that he has thought of Doyoung, these past months especially, he could never foresee how meeting him again would be—if he would be angry at a missed opportunity, or indifferent due to the passage of time–but he sees now he should have realised that happiness and contentment is what Doyoung would bring him because it is all he has ever brought him. 

“Jaehyun,” Doyoung says once they are standing face to face, drawn together like magnets. “You look well.”

“A-as do you, it’s good to see you again,” his voice is weak, even a little choked, as Doyoung smiles at him. He’s so handsome in his silver blazer, his hair pushed off his forehead and a little ruffled as if he’d ran his hand over it one too many times. The image he had of the boy Doyoung was evaporates from his mind and is replaced by the man standing in front of him, grown and even more beautiful than he could have ever imagined. 

“How are you?” he asks, the words falling from his mouth in a giddy exhale. He can’t seem to stop smiling, even trying would amount to a sisyphean task as Doyoung rests a hand on his upper arm and smiles widely back at him. It makes him look younger. 

“I’m good—better—now. It’s so good to see you again,” Doyoung’s fingers squeeze his arm as if they want to tug him closer and for a hesitant moment they shift on their feet before coming together in a hug, laughing breathlessly at their indecisiveness. 

“Were you going somewhere?” Doyoung asks once they part.

“Well I was—no, it doesn’t matter. Do you have some t… some time? To catch up?”

Doyoung nods, rapidly and in excess as if he suddenly can’t find words to express himself. His silence is infectious and Jaehyun finds himself mum as his mouth can only form smiles, his chest feeling lighter than it has since he set foot on Hogwarts ground, perhaps even before that.  _ Do, my, do you _ –his mouth forms the words, but that is as far as he gets. When he points over his own shoulder though—bouncing a little on his toes and exhaling a breathless laugh—Doyoung at least seems to get it.

“I’d love to,” he says and his smile softens around the edges, bringing his eyes alive. 

“You know, being a professor suits you,” Doyoung says right before the painting of Olwenna swings open and reveals the entrance to his private chambers. He had never thought it did, he had rather felt out of place in the familiar halls he grew up in, but Doyoung saying otherwise makes him rethink. 

“Yeah?” he whispers, incapable of raising his voice any higher. Doyoung doesn’t seem to mind, lowering his own voice to match as they leave their coats at the entrance.

“You always wanted to do something that mattered,” he says and his eyes meet Jaehyun’s again before he turns and walks into the room, taking it all in before falling into one of the chairs by the fireplace with the comfort of someone fully at ease with their company. It makes Jaehyun feel strangely warm in the chill of the tall-ceilinged room. 

“Can you get the fire?” he asks as he walks briskly by behind Doyoung to the cabinet in the corner for two goblets and a bottle of red. He spins on his heels when he hears Doyoung move and his eyes are glued to the small thing of Doyoung snapping his fingers to make the dry wood catch fire. Doyoung’s wandless magic have always enchanted him.

“It never gets old,” he whispers, not sure if Doyoung can even hear him, before he makes his way to the empty chair in front of the hearth. 

“You’re the a-auror,” he says once he is seated, continuing the trail of conversation Doyoung started, “you’re the one out there, making the world safer.” Doyoung snorts a derisive laugh as he accepts the pewter goblet filled with red wine and settles further into the comfortable, padded chair.

“Maybe so, but I don’t do that because of some sense of greater purpose. It’s a stepping stone, that’s all it is.”

“Still, you do the work,” he says quietly around the rim of his goblet as he takes a sip, watching Doyoung from under his eyelashes. There is something dark about Doyoung that wasn’t there before, a cynicism he must have caught as an adult.

“Well, a man who does no work, learns nothing,” Doyoung says in a lighter voice and his eyes twinkle in the firelight as he drinks heartily. 

“Defoe,” Jaehyun says, taking up again the game from their childhood that never seemed to end. Doyoung smiles at it, tipping his goblet slightly in his direction. 

“Can we not talk about my work? I’d like a break to be perfectly honest,” Doyoung says and sags even more in his seat, looking drawn and exhausted.

“Of course,” he whispers in reply, not knowing what else to say. The silence that settles over them is comfortable and for once he doesn’t worry about having nothing to say; there is no need for words as merely sharing each other’s company is satisfactory. He could never have predicted that being with Doyoung would be so easy, not after all this time. But even as he sits staring into the popping fire and slowly nurses his wine, he can’t stop his mind, like it has been wont to do since, from wandering to a night not so many days ago. 

Johnny had been a surprise, but as the night progressed it turned out it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant one. He hadn’t intended to go with him–to let himself be ensnared by his remorseful words and wounded gaze. He had certainly not meant on falling into old habits when faced with a warm fire roaring in the hearth and a larger than necessary four-poster bed, but he did. The morning after had been nice, but he fears it may just as certainly have been because he didn’t stay long enough for it to turn unpleasant. Even so, Johnny has gotten under his skin.

“What do you like most about teaching?” Doyoung asks, interrupting his thoughts. He’s still slumped in his chair, looking into his goblet as if he’s surprised it’s empty. Jaehyun takes a moment to refill both their cups before he answers.

“Honestly?”

“Alway honestly,” Doyoung interrupts and points a finger at him. He is clearly already a little drunk.

“Being th...being the smartest person in the room.” Doyoung snorts and he laughs, hiding his face in his wine goblet to drown the sound of his giggles. 

“I can understand that. Though in my experience, being the smartest person in the room is an inherently bad thing. Grownups tend to dislike you or, which I'm sure is the case with my assistant, fear you.” He slurs his words—most likely from the combination of drink and exhaustion. Jaehyun realises he should have offered his guest more than just wine and while Doyoung stares blankly into the flames, he stretches to the side table and quietly jots down a small request for supper on the enchanted paper. Hopefully Rola hasn’t gone to bed already. 

“Wh...what were you doing at Hogwarts anyway?” he asks, unable to halt his curiosity even as the question makes Doyoung’s face twist for a second in an ugly grimace. 

“Work,” is all he says and Jaehyun is saved from having to muster an apology for prying as in the next moment Rola appears between them with a pop. Floating next to him is a tray of food, scones and red lentil soup from the looks of it as well as a pot of tea.

“Master Jaehyun is drinking wine? Rola will take the tea away then,” Rola says in his high, pitchy voice and as quick as he appeared he is gone, leaving the food but taking the tea with him back to the kitchen. 

“Thanks,” the words stop in his throat, turning into a hiss of air and then into a laugh. Rola is a character that is for sure.

“What a weird elf,” Doyoung mutters and pulls himself up to sit properly in his chair, the promise of food seemingly wiping his troubles from his mind. 

“The thing is; the case seems unsolvable,” Doyoung begins as he contemplates the plate of scones, apparently changing his mind on the topic of work. “There is far too little proof to make a probable case, and the only reason it even came to land on my desk is that one of the dead was a highly esteemed member of the Wizengamot.

I have built it from that  _ scrap _ of a file to a  _ hint _ of something plausible, and I  _ still _ don’t know if I’m on the right track!”

Jaehyun smiles wryly into his lap, unsure how to even process the sudden vent. Unable to find the words on his own, he decides to borrow them just like Doyoung did before.

“You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know,” he fumbles a little with the order of the words, so many similar sounds causing mayhem to his stutter, but Doyoung laughs all the same.

“Oscar Wilde,” he comments before biting into a scone. After chewing slowly for a moment he suddenly hurries to swallow and turns to Jaehyun with contrite eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m just so frustrated. Come on, anything you need to get off your chest? It’s only fair,” he chuckles and Jaehyun smiles with him, though it quickly falls when Professor Qian’s face pops into his head. How nice it would be to tell someone, to air his very real grievances with the older man to someone he trusts. But he can’t. Not to anyone, but especially not to Doyoung. Because no matter how much he wants to think he can trust him with anything, Doyoung is first and foremost an officer of the law, and they haven’t seen each other in years. Though that last bit is difficult to remember with how comfortable and easy it is to be together again. 

“Oh, um, nah,” he laughs, nervousness making him sound both breathy and shrill. Doyoung quirks an eyebrow at him, looking so entirely unconvinced Jaehyun fears for a second that  _ the auror _ knows more than he has let on. Then Doyoung speaks and brings him back to reality: “you’re a teacher and you tell me you have nothing to complain about? I doubt it.”

“Come on. You got to have  _ one _ student that gets on your nerves!” Jaehyun genuinely considers it–if Donghyuk is enough of a smartass to be aggravating, or if the first year Hufflepuff duo is a cause for concern or if Jisung’s quietness will eventually calm Chenle enough to not be a hazard, but even with their wildest antics none of his students ever really bothers him. 

“Actually … no,” he shrugs, staring wide-eyed into the flames, a little surprised by his own admission. 

“I think that says everything about you,” Doyoung says, his voice quiet, almost hushed. “Your students like you. You always wanted to do something that mattered, to do good, and they see that. And it is after all the quality of one’s convictions that determines success.”

Jaehyun can’t help but smile at the praise just as he narrows his eyes in playful suspicion.

“Who said that?” he asks, scowl growing when Doyoung widens his eyes and holds a hand out, palm up, in a mock display of innocence. 

“I did,” he says, face twitching with a laugh and when Jaehyun pouts excessively and says: “you’re not that smart,” it finally bursts free. 

The only other time Jaehyun has seen Doyoung laugh so freely was the summer before his last year at Hogwarts, when Doyoung had stayed at his house while he sent out job applications to the Ministry and almost anywhere else that he could think of. They had gone for a picnic round the other side of the lake from his house and in an attempt at picking a Lobelia Cardinalis near the lake’s edge he had fallen in, emerging spluttering and covered in green algae to Doyoung clutching his side in laughter while reaching a hand out for him to take. He hadn’t really minded the sliminess of the murky lake water that much just to see Doyoung so unrestrained. 

He has no idea what time it is. The hours have gone by with the chime of the large clock standing in the corner, but as they reached the bottom of the second bottle of wine, keeping track grew impossible. They had talked for most of that time, working their way through topics like what they had been up to since graduation where Doyoung told him about acing the auror exams on his first try and getting a promotion two years ago despite his department head having no kind words to spare him, and Jaehyun, without going into any particular detail as there were far too many, talked about the years he spent on the continent. Doyoung had asked of course—why would he spend two years researching  _ algae _ without a proper motivator—but as opposed to his confrontation with Mark, telling Doyoung about his mom was a comfort. It was the way Doyoung held his hand and didn’t try to understand how he felt about it, didn’t measure his way of coping against anything else and only accepted that was how he had to do it. No one had ever really shown him so much empathy before. 

In turn Doyoung had told him about his brother, and his father’s sickness, and it was perhaps the sobriety of it that led them to where they are now. 

“Why exactly do you have this?” Doyoung giggles, leaning heavily against Jaehyun’s shoulder as they read together from the old, yellowed pages.

“I found it in an antique book store in Vienna, Johnny had just left me and I was horny as hell okay,” he giggles in response, struggling more than a little as he is far too drunk to hold both himself and Doyoung upright. 

“This is smut,” Doyoung says, his eyebrows raised as high as they can go. “This is _ smut _ ,” he repeats, as if he hasn’t been reading from it for several minutes already. 

“Eighthteenth century gay erotica,” he enunciates and promptly bursts into laughter.  _ Amazing _ , he mouths and takes the book from Jaehyun’s hands, leaning his back against the bookcase as he flips through the pages for a particularly good entry. Then he clears his throat and begins to read.

“Stefan is especially good with his mouth. He uses his tongue in ways neither Markus nor Johannes have yet to discover … wow, this guy really got around, didn’t he.”

“It almost sounds like he had his own harem or something.”

“They could be prostitutes.”

They look at each other then and the laughter comes all too easily, loud and carefree in their little corner of solitude, and Jaehyun hopes the outside world stays away, that it leaves them be for as long as they have. 

“I can see why you bought it actually,” Doyoung says in a calmer voice once the laughter subsides, as he skims the numerous entries of the centuries old journal. “I’d get off on this.” He says it so casually it sends Jaehyun into another bout of giggles. Doyoung doesn’t join in this time, but watches him with such fondness it stops his laughter short as soon as he recognises it. 

“Who could have known that after eight years we’d be here again,” he says softly, it’s almost a whisper and … was he always this close? Jaehyun doesn’t know if he moved or if Doyoung did, or if they were always that close to each other and he hadn't noticed until now, but he thinks he could count all of Doyoung’s eyelashes if he wanted. 

“Put two ships in the sea, without wind or tide, and they will come together,” he murmurs, drawn in by the sudden stillness in the air around them. Doyoung smiles, just a quirk of his mouth and Jaehyun can feel his breath on his skin when he says: “you’ve finally read Jules Verne,” and the simplicity of his words doesn’t match the sensuality of his voice.

He knows where it’s heading—he can see the intent all but burning in Doyoung’s eyes—but he still reacts with surprise when Doyoung brushes fingers over his cheek. He feels it in the way his stomach contracts at the touch, how the air stills in his lungs for the briefest second.

“I’m … there’s,” he stammers, pulling away a tiny bit and Doyoung retreats, curling his fingers in the empty space between them and smiling wryly.

“Sorry,” he whispers, no longer looking at him and Jaehyun knows with an acute sting of regret that he has done exactly what he hoped wouldn't happen. He brought reality into their bubble, shattering it in the process.

“No,” he says, grasping for any way back to where they were, throwing his own hand out to Doyoung’s and tangling their fingers. “Though it’s a… it’s a bit complicated.”

“Are we complicated?” Doyoung asks and rubs his thumb over the back of Jaehyun’s hand. 

“No, not … not us.”

Doyoung retreats fully then, just as Jaehyun wants nothing more than to wrap him in his arms, and for a moment he is frozen. 

“You’re with someone,” Doyoung says and sighs heavily, disappointed, before turning away towards the window. Jaehyun opens his mouth, willing the words into existence, and for the first time in his life they don’t fail him when he needs them the most.

“No, I’m not,” he says, grasping again for Doyoung’s hand and pulling at his wrist to get him back, away from the window and into their little nook in the corner where no one can see them. “Not really, it’s …”

“It’s complicated,” Doyoung finishes for him, smiling when Jaehyun nods dejectedly. He doesn’t know  _ what _ he has with Johnny right now, if there is even anything there to have anymore, but he knows he can’t just throw him away. Even though he finds it hard to even remember his name when Doyoung is standing right in front of him, wanting him; he knows there are far too many threads to unravel already. 

“We don’t have to be complicated,” Doyoung says and cups Jaehyun’s cheek in his palm, “it can just be tonight.”

It would be a waste, wouldn't it? To have Doyoung here—the man who has all of his firsts—and not take advantage. He wants to know what Doyoung is like now, how much he has improved since they were teens and hiding behind the curtains of Doyoung’s dorm bed and countless privacy charms Jaehyun didn’t even know how to do yet. Of course, at the time, Doyoung was the best he could even imagine, but he also didn’t know any better. 

“Jaehyun?” Doyoung’s voice and his hand on his nape startles him out of his thoughts and Jaehyun can only grimace when he realises he’s done it again.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“We don’t have to. You can tell me about your favourite Jules Verne book–” “Twenty thousand leagues under the sea,” Jaehyun mumbles a bit dazedly and Doyoung laughs. 

“But I w...want to. I was thinking about our first time,” he says and searches out Doyoung’s eyes, wanting to share in the memory.

“I promise my technique is a lot better,” Doyoung says with a giggle hidden behind his lips and Jaehyun smiles, but doesn’t divulge how that is exactly what was on his mind.

“I like to th...to think mine is too,” he takes a step closer and twines their fingers together, gaze flitting from Doyoung’s eyes to his mouth. Doyoung takes the hint quickly, using his hand on Jaehyun’s nape to pull him even closer until their breath mingles, and their noses brush and Jaehyun can feel Doyoung’s eyelashes against his cheeks as they flutter close. 

Kissing Doyoung is like coming home. He’s fifteen again and his mother is fine and his father is still the man who raised him and Mark is his best friend and the only thing he has to worry about is how to not get a T on his arithmancy OWL. Then Doyoung kisses him again, wraps both hands around Jaehyun’s nape and tilts his head how he wants it and  _ kisses _ him, and he’s just Jaehyun. He doesn’t deserve Doyoung, not a bit of him, but if Doyoung is willing to share then he will have every bit of him he can. 

Kissing, Jaehyun decides, is one of his favourite things. Doyoung’s mouth on his is soft, the shape of his lips so delicate, but even so they don’t give an inch. Not that he’s really trying for any sort of control. With Johnny he sometimes finds he has to; for some reason Johnny needs it to know Jaehyun wants him. Doyoung is understated and firm, he is assertive and compliant, always changing in a pleasant wave of sensation and it’s so …  _ simple _ .

As he kisses Doyoung back, runs his fingers up his spine and clings to him, Jaehyun feels no pressure to be anything but how he is; confident in his knowledge that if he held back Doyoung would take the lead, and if he wanted to push for more Doyoung would grant it to him. 

“Bed?” Doyoung asks and nips at the underside of his jaw, tilting his head back with a firm grip on his hair. Jaehyun can do nothing but groan his agreement, a garbled mess of sounds as he first pulls Doyoung’s hips firmly against his own and then pushes them to steer Doyoung in the right direction. The door is closed, but before he can properly press Doyoung against the wood it melts away in yet another impressive show of wandless magic.

“How do you do that?” he mumbles against Doyoung’s lips, awed. Doyoung hums a laugh and says “same as you,” but Jaehyun very much doubts that. He, for one, could never do the things Doyoung does without his wand in his hand. 

“What do you want?” Doyoung mumbles against his lips, grunting when his shoulder bumps against the column supporting the arch dividing the room in two. Jaehyun’s only answer is a moan and he falls ungracefully to his knees at Doyoung’s feet. He wants to suck his cock, that’s for sure. Doyoung grips his hair in one fist, a quiet hiss escaping him as Jaehyun grapples with his belt and silver trousers to get at what lies beneath. 

He can’t remember the last time he felt like this, so desperate and heated. There is something about Doyoung now that is different than anything else he’s ever experienced. It’s not like with Johnny, where it was more about the closeness and being together, but neither is it like any other one-night-stand he has had. He supposes Doyoung being his ex—his first love—creates its own gray area between familiarity and distance. He won’t deny he likes it there. 

“Jaehyun? Where’d you go?” Doyoung asks and gently cups his cheek. It’s only then Jaehyun realises he is frozen on the floor, clutching the hem of Doyoung’s trousers with both hands, his mind having swallowed him up once again.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles and rises unsteadily to his feet to kiss Doyoung instead. He spends too much time in his own head, wastes away in his thoughts, and for now he doesn’t want to think. Turning them around, he tugs at Doyoung’s hands and pulls him along to the bed in the very middle of the high-ceilinged room. He wants Doyoung to take it all away, to wipe him clean so he can start again. What he’ll do after tonight is a matter for the morrow. 

“I want you,” he whispers, rising on his toes to slide onto the mattress. Doyoung follows smoothly, shrugging off his jacket and pushing Jaehyun into the sheets with the force of his kiss. Doyoung knows what he means and goes above and beyond to give him what he wants, and for one night Jaehyun is someone else entirely.

It’s still not morning but not quite night when Doyoung rises from his bed to put his clothes back on. Jaehyun turns languidly in the sheets and reaches for him with a muted plea, “do you have to go?” Doyoung sighs and Jaehyun recognises the disappointment and resignation mirrored back at him when their eyes meet. 

“I have a meeting with my department head in … three hours,” he looks at his watch as he fits it back on his wrist. “I want to go home first and I need to prepare.” His voice is hushed, his words barely reaching Jaehyun’s ears and he can’t really say why it brings tears to his eyes that he blinks away, unnoticed in the darkness of the room. He has spent hours in this space with Doyoung, a fictional age with their bodies pressed together and their fingers laced and their mouths occupied with everything but talking. It could be like that, Doyoung wouldn't have to leave—could stay until morning, bathe, go to work in  _ his _ clothes—if he asked, Doyoung would. He knew somewhere in the middle of the night, with Doyoung’s head resting on the pillow beside his and their panting breaths mixed between their smiles that if he let him then Doyoung would stay. But as much as Doyoung occupied his mind and thoughts, he never really managed to erase the memory of Johnny looking at him like he was a life-saving oasis. He owes it to himself to give Johnny another chance.

Doyoung’s hand brushes through his hair as he perches on the edge of the mattress. He kisses him, holds his head still and tastes his mouth one last time and Jaehyun feels the shudder in his breath when they part. 

“Can I stay until you fall asleep?” Doyoung whispers, biting his lip and looking more vulnerable than Jaehyun has ever seen him. There’s a longing in his eyes and Jaehyun hates himself for denying it, which is probably why he allows Doyoung’s request. 

He falls asleep with Doyoung’s arm wrapped around him, his cheek pressed to his velvet breast pocket and if he cries a little when he wakes alone then no one else has to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Doyoung(I) didn't say that, it was Professor Lupin  
And fyi, updates will probably not be as quick from now on since i have heaps of assignments again


	6. Doyoung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lost any and all motivation to write this but it seems it's coming back to me so here's the next chapter.  
Thank you to everyone who has been reading so far<3

His office has never looked so bleak. The wood of his desk looks faded, the colour on his walls lackluster, and the sunlight falling through his window is gray. He changed into a burgundy suit once he got home that morning, but even it lacks colour in his eyes. It’s weird—for sure not something he’s ever experienced before—but still he knows exactly why the world is as colourless as his great-aunt's closet. In the span of one night he has fallen for Jaehyun all over again and now the world looks dimmer without the younger man at his side. Being in love stinks. 

A tentative knock sounds on his door and he straightens from his undignified slump over his desk and clears his throat before calling for whoever it is to enter. Mark’s golden-brown head peeks between the double doors for a look before the rest of him follows. He has a file clutched in both hands and stands straight-backed and proper in front of Doyoung’s desk. Whether from respect or what now, Mark is always proper with Doyoung.

“What is it?” he says, attempting a smile as Mark takes too long before addressing him. Normally he would be impatient and cross already, but the good mood from the night before has yet to leave him, even with the despondent apathy slowly taking over his mind. “You can speak freely,” he says and leans back in his chair when Mark still hesitates in front of him.

“Sorry, sorry I just … this isn’t exactly work related so I wasn’t sure if you’d,” “Go ahead,” he interrupts as Mark is starting to look constipated with the effort of holding in whatever is on his mind. They don’t know each other outside of work so he doubts it could be anything too personal anyway. He folds his hands over his stomach and suppresses a smile when Mark quite obviously steels himself before opening his mouth again.

“First off, please don’t think badly of me for taking so long to confront you? About this. I’m supposed to be an auror, right? Brave and daring,” Mark laughs and knocks his knuckles against his temple. “You’re Doyoung Kim, of the Kim pureblood family? The Slytherin Wonder I think people used to call you in school? Your brother was the first Hufflepuff Head Boy in a century? You dated Jaehyun Jung in your last year?”

“All of this is correct,” Doyoung hums, tilting his head and running his tongue over his teeth as he tries to understand why any of what Mark is saying is relevant to their relationship. 

“Jaehyun was my best friend,” Mark says and suddenly Doyoung is left wondering why he didn’t instantly make the connection himself. He knew of course that Mark wasn’t as young as he made him out to be in his mind; that he was only a couple years younger than him and they most likely went to school together, but since he started counting years in experience and not time, any new recruit is a kid in his eyes. And while there are plenty of Marks in this city, there aren’t that many Mark Lees; he’ll admit he wasn’t the most attentive of his peers so he doesn’t fault himself for not knowing Mark’s face, but Jaehyun talked enough about him for the name to at least spark some recognition in him. 

“I didn’t realise,” he says eventually, and he can tell from the simmering out of excitement in Mark’s face that he was less than enthusiastic. “I saw him last night,” he says to make up for it, but instead Mark’s face grows tight in the corners and the hum of interest he makes is anything but convincing. He knows, of course, about the fall out. Jaehyun told him in detail down to their last angry encounter. He doesn’t let on, instead taps his fingers nonchalantly on the arm of his chair and smiles to himself. “It was nice,” he alludes, the smile tightening to a smirk and Mark makes a choked sound before clearing his throat.

“I was going to ask actually. If you’d had any contact with him I mean.” Mark is tittering where he stands, nervous and restless and Doyoung is tempted to tell him to get out just to save his young assistant from the tension. But the prospect of discussing Jaehyun, to have a reason to let that name move past his lips, is too enticing for him to be in any way courteous.

“Not before last night, but we talked at length about a lot of things,” he douses his voice in insinuation and can tell by the even more uncomfortable grimace on Mark’s face that he understands. “Is there anything in particular on your mind, Mark? Or did you just want to share in our mutual acquaintance?” His fingers have tightened around the curve of the arm rests and he straightens them one by one to dispel the tension seeping through his skin. He normally doesn’t take sides but he finds himself unable to not blame Mark for leaving Jaehyun like he did at a time when Jaehyun clearly needed him the most. 

He remembers well that Jaehyun could be a little impulsive at times, but for the most part he thought extensively before acting and was always rational. He hadn’t said as much to Jaehyun the night before, but the story of how he traded his apartment sounded to him as the actions of a lost and scared boy who no longer knew what to do with himself. Jaehyun loves his mother more than anything, that has always been crystal clear, and the prospect of losing her must have turned his whole world around. And he can’t help but think that if he, even after eight years, could recognise and sympathise with that, then Mark should have been able to do the same. 

“I … Jaehyun doesn’t have a lot of friends. I think it would be good if you kept in touch,” Marks says after a long while, forcing as much certitude in his tone as he probably dared. Doyoung can see the wholehearted care Mark still has for Jaehyun and it takes the edge of his anger, at least long enough for it to be replaced with a different cause. 

“I plan to,” he says and is once again forced to unclench his fingers from the seemingly perfectly molded armrests to gesture with one hand at the door. Mark has been his assistant long enough to know when he is no longer wanted and makes a hasty exit, only to be halted halfway out the door by Doyoung’s voice.

“If you’re so worried about him, why not reach out yourself? We both know he would appreciate it.” He doesn’t expect an answer and when Mark flounders in the doorway with his mouth moving soundlessly he waves him off again, making sure the door shuts with an extra loud bang after him.

Doyoung is rushing through the halls of the ministry, nimbly jumping out of the way of other ministry workers as he makes his way to the canteen. A letter had come for him from the Hogwarts potions professor that he needs to discuss with Irene as soon as possible. When she wasn’t in her office he knew there could be only one other place he would find her, and while he is loathe to interrupt he really has no other choice. 

“And I come home and there’s a beautiful spread on the table and the placemats are little drawings that they’d made and the food was just exquisite, just _ magical _ . Of course Yunho had done most of the work, but they were so proud of themselves and I was so proud of _ them _.” Doyoung halts awkwardly next to the table seating the four women, barely containing a grimace as he can’t find the words to interrupt Minister Kwon’s heartfelt rendition of her family. “It was exactly what I needed after the week I’d ...” the minister cuts her words with a hum as Luna, the Head of the Department for International Magical Trading, brings her hand to her mouth and points at Doyoung with an uncomfortable raise of her eyebrows. Minister Kwon turns to look at him over her shoulder, as does Irene though with a decidedly less friendly expression.

“Minister, ma’am, ma’am,” he nods his head at each of them in turn, ending with Taeyeon— the minister’s chief of staff—before addressing his boss.

“My apologies, but something urgent has come up. It concerns what we discussed the other day,” he raises an eyebrow and tightens the corners of his mouth but there’s no need for him to insinuate anymore; Irene knows at once what he means and wastes no time.

“Sorry ladies, duty calls,” she says to the table at large as she stands from her seat and gathers her meager lunch on her tray.

“Yes, go keep us safe,” Luna beams up at her and Doyoung is awarded with the rarest of sights when Irene beams back just as powerfully. “I’ll do my very best,” she laughs and claps a soft hand on Minister Kwon’s shoulder before taking her tray and leading the way out of the canteen.

“I’m really sorry, I know you don’t like to be interrupted when you’re having lunch but this is important,” he says once they are in the hallway, patting a hand over the letter secured in a pocket inside his jacket. 

“In here,” Irene says and opens a door to an empty conference room, impatiently waving him inside when he hesitates in the hallway.

“Wouldn't your office be better?” he asks and does a sweep of the room to make sure they’re alone. He hears the lock click in the door and turns around to see Irene move her wand in a gentle arch over her head, casting a silencing spell on the room.

“This is off the records,” she says, folding her arms over her stomach and tossing her long hair over her shoulder. She is wearing a black, shimmery jumpsuit today and he can’t help but admire how good she looks in it. She and Joy would get along well, he thinks. 

“That might not be possible anymore,” he says and pulls the letter from his jacket pocket and hands it to her. “It’s from Professor Qian, a list of ingredients for the Moonshine. As you can see it’s almost complete with the addition of powdered south sea pearl.”

Over the years since he was handed the case he has lost count of how many so-called experts he has consulted about the Moonshine, each one of them just barely outdoing their predecessors. Not one of them has been able to pinpoint the presence of pearl. 

“That’s not a common potion ingredient; it’s uncommonly expensive,” Irene says, her eyes scanning the letter over and over again and her fingers tightening in the fabric of her clothes, causing it to crease over her chest. 

“I know someone who trades in them, she helped me on a case before so I can try and reach out,” he hesitates in telling her the rest, knowing she won’t like it any more than he does.

“Well do that then. I had you on a home search, but I can reassign you,” she says, speaking mostly to herself as she thinks. He takes the letter hanging from her fingers and folds it back up before pocketing it.

“I would, but I need your permission,” he says and she waves a hand and looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “I just gave it to you.”

“No, I mean I need your permission,” he haltingly tries again but she interrupts him. “Stop stalling Kim, what do you need?”

“Seulgi harvests the pearls herself,” he says slowly, smiling wryly when Irene sighs and mumbles “she doesn’t live here,” under her breath. “Last time I saw her she was living on a boat outside the coast of Indonesia. I don’t know if she’s still there, but if I go abroad on unofficial business and get caught … best-case scenario I lose my job.”

He can see the gears of Irene’s mind working in the depths of her eyes and he is fairly certain the beat of his heart has synchronised with the insistent tapping of her heel. 

“Say I go on record; you’ve been abroad before concerning this case and others, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary. The only problem being I would have to state a cause and those records are available to all employees; Ten would know, presuming he doesn’t already. Though it’s likely Professor Qian is simply a consultant, we can’t rule out the possibility that they are both somehow involved in it all–” “Or Ten is a pushover terrified of making mistakes and Professor Qian is simply a really good consultant,” he interrupts her rambled musings and is unable to meet her eyes when she bestows on him a highly disappointed glare.

“You followed a hunch and now you have a solid lead for the first time in years. Doyoung … I trust your gut—a lot more than I trust any of our colleagues' intellect—and you should too.” She searches for his eyes, leaning in and tilting her head and he knows she’s right, but it is her fingers wrapping around his forearm that makes him meet her gaze. “I’ll put in a request for international travel, stating the need to seek out a source. In the meantime just … do your job as normal.” 

She retracts her hand and steps back, wiping down her clothes and quietly clearing her throat as she paints a determined frown back on her face. He knows it’s all a mask now and he feels substantial guilt at the thought that he is probably a big reason why she needs to maintain it. 

“I will see you at the briefing tomorrow morning,” she says and leaves with her head held high. He hears her greet someone in the hallway—making small talk as her voice gradually fades—and he stays perfectly still until the door swings shut and he’s locked inside the privacy bubble once again.

The stifling heat of Bangkok hits him before the world has even stopped spinning around him. Paired with the unsettling effect of portkey travel it’s enough to make him feel ill. He looks around himself, drops the silver comb on the dusty ground and sets off down the narrow street in front of him. He has no idea where in the city he is, but the tang of magic leads him from one street to another and right up to a dark wooden door with more holes in it than Yeri’s fishnet stockings. It’s ajar, the tangible enchantments coating it all but inviting him in but he stops at the threshold with his hands in his pockets and waits. He’s not about to force his way in and he suspects even knocking could just as quickly lose him a hand.

The sky dims while he waits, turning from misty yellow to sea blue, and all the while the street is abustle around him, but his presence isn’t paid any mind. He suspects they can’t even see him anymore; can feel how his magic has bonded to that of this building. 

Just as he is about to give up, the door closes with a click and is reopened a second later. In the doorway—shadowed by the equally dark inside of the room—is a short, heavy-set woman with wrapped hair and a pair of clever eyes glinting in the hanging lights above the door. She waves a hand between them and turns away, her footsteps receding into the dark, and Doyoung looks to either side of himself and slips soundlessly through the door.

“You have great patience,” a rough, female voice says from the back of the room and he takes his wand out from his sleeve and mumbles “lumos”, casting the light around the room until he can see her again. She is older than he first thought, her brown, wrinkled face telling of many years under the sun. Her clothing is distinctly muggle, but the rest of her reeks of magic. He imagines she must have been extraordinary in her youth.

“You stood there for five hours, I am impressed,” she speaks with a clear-cut enunciation but with hardly an accent and her words are easier to follow than most of his colleagues. 

“Your enchantments are powerful, I didn’t want to risk loss of limb,” he says, feigning distraction as he looks around the small room. There really isn’t much to look at—a short, almost empty bookcase in the corner and a vanity shoved against its side, an empty fireplace on the opposite wall and a large iron trough next to a small stool. She is still sitting there when he draws his attention back to her; her hands sifting through the thick liquid in the trough that smells like horse manure as he draws near. 

“I’ve grown numb to the smell I’m afraid, environmentally damaged,” she laughs and wrinkles her nose, probably in imitation of him. She rises from the stool to reach all the way around the trough and dips her arms inside its depths, stirring its contents in five heaving swirls before pulling her arms out and drying them off on her orange apron. She straightens fully then and Doyoung is caught off guard by how tall she really is; her curved spine and crooked knees had made her look old and fragile, but he no longer doubts she is still as formidable as she was in her prime. 

“How may I help you English?” she says and he fights the instinctive urge to correct her. _ He _ may have been born and raised in England, but his family have always been korean. 

“I’m looking for someone, she trades in south sea pearls.” 

The old witch gathers her skirts in her hands and walks closer on bare feet, stopping still a good distance away and leaning forward at the waist. As if she didn’t want to get too close.

“Last I heard she was somewhere outside Fiji. Swimming with the fishes,” she says with an ill-timed laugh. There is no cruelty in her face, but no kindness either. She is simply conveying information, probably humored by his misfortune. Doyoung however feels cold, as if his blood was replaced with arctic sea water, and he imagines he may as well quickly turn to ice. 

He pulls a gold coin from his pocket, holding it out to the old woman even though he’d rather not give her anything for such dark news. She finally pulls a face other than glee—narrowing her eyes and flaring her nose as her shoulders raise, looking not unlike a cat with raised hackles—and she curses at him in words he doesn’t understand.

“I don’t accept money,” she sneers, but still with no real malice. He can tell she’s enjoying herself at his expense, but he doesn’t let it bother him.

“It’s not money,” he says and holds the coin out to her again. Her curiosity is peaked and she holds a hand up to his, a small light in her palm, and once she gets a good look at the coin she snatches it from his fingers in a second. It’s Inca gold—his father has a substantial collection—and the old treasure is considered highly valuable amongst curse-breakers.

“This is accepted,” she says, no longer paying him any attention. He stays only long enough to watch her vanish the coin inside her palm and then he leaves the dark building with its holey door behind for good. Once back in the street, he turns on the spot and disapparates.

Walking on sand with wingtip shoes is not the easiest. The ground gives far too easily under his feet and makes him long for the safety of concrete. He contemplates taking his shoes off, but the thought of being so sloppy-looking makes his nose wrinkle. If he is being candid; he’d rather suffer. At least the heat is more manageable here, by the sea with the wind sifting through the large leaves of the never-ending stretch of palm trees along the shore. He can understand why Seulgi would settle in a place like this. At least, he can understand why someone _ like _ Seulgi would settle here. The lack of human life and a coffee shop is a bit too much for him.

He doesn’t hear them approach—rather it’s the absence of sound that alerts him—and he pulls his wand out and points it behind himself, tucked under his arm, just as the rounded tip of another’s is pushed into his back.

“What are you doing here?” The voice is familiar, sweet and inviting even when stern, and he lifts both hands in the air to show his surrender. “I was looking for you, heard you were dead.” He turns around, slowly as Seulgi has yet to lower her wand, and slips his own ash wand back into his sleeve. 

“Well stop looking,” Seulgi says and turns easily on her bare heels back to the treeline. “Please!” he calls after her, following a lot more clumsily in her footstep. “I need your help.”

“I can’t help you,” she yells over her shoulder and Doyoung curses and turns on the spot—disapparating and reappearing only steps in front of her. “You’re my only lead,” is as far as he gets before Seulgi takes a tight hold of his forearm and pulls him along as she disapparates. 

He’ll blame it on his reptilian brain when the first thing he notices about his new surroundings is not the colourful drapes hanging from the ceiling, nor the beautiful view or the lively parrots balanced here and there, but the tall, _ naked _ woman standing in the kitchen. She barely reacts at their entrance, simply lifting a cigarette to her lips and taking a drag as Doyoung gets a good look of, well, _ all of her _, before averting his eyes. 

“It’s just a man,” she says and her voice is hoarse and low and pure sex. “Seulgi, when you said you were going out to find someone I thought we were going to have some fun.” He hears a rustle of cloths and when the woman enters his line of sight again she has a silk robe wrapped around her figure. “At least this one knows to not look.”

“He’s gay,” Seulgi says and the woman laughs, pulling her long brown hair over one shoulder. “Well that explains it,” she says with a glance at him before kissing Seulgi lightly on the lips. “I’ll leave you alone then.”

Seulgi moves to a delicately carved side table tucked against a cream white chaise facing the open archways out to the sea and pours them both a thumb of brandy. He accepts the tumbler and doesn’t comment anything about his drinking habits.

“Why did the old witch think you were dead?” he asks after Seulgi has emptied her glass and poured another, fuller. 

“Because I am,” is all she says, as simple as any benign comment. “To everyone but the three of us, at least.” She looks at him over the top of her glass and if it were anyone else he would think he was being threatened, but Seulgi is too pure—too transparent and kind—for anything like that. An unusual quality to find in a black market trader.

He decides not to comment and only swirls the amber liquid around in his glass and waits for Seulgi to offer the information of her own accord. It doesn’t take long.

“About three years ago these men came to me, said they wanted to make a deal. I would harvest south sea pearls as usual, but save the ones with the highest aptitude for magical properties and in due time they would come to collect. I tried telling them I don’t make deals for work, if they want to trade then they trade in what I got.” She looks at him then, her face awash with humiliation. “I didn’t want anything to do with them really; they reeked of dark magic, but … they offered good money, Doyoung you have to understand. It’s all business, I’m just trying to make a living for me and Sunmi.”

He hadn’t realised until then how highly his opinion mattered to Seulgi. “It’s alright, Seulgi please. I get it.” He rests a hand on her shoulder and it’s clear his lack of judgement was what she needed as her shoulder sinks tangibly under his palm. 

“There were more than one?” he asks and leans his lower back against the railing of the veranda that spans the length of the hut and rounds the corner on either side. He has to admit it’s pretty perfect here; the calm sea and the gentle rush of palm leaves moving in the breeze almost enough to make him forget his purpose of being there.

“Yes,” Seulgi nods, her head facing downwards to the sea lapping at the thick support beam punched into the ocean floor. “There were three of them, they never gave me their names but that’s business as usual in my trade. Though, when they came to pick up the pearls about a year ago, they did mention one name.” She looks up at him then and he knows even before she says it that the name is one he is more than familiar with. “They mentioned someone called the _ Moonshiner _.”

Before he is even aware of his hand moving, he has swallowed the contents of his glass in one gulp. He had always suspected that the _ Moonshiner _ was a moniker for a group rather than an individual, but he’s not sure he was ready to have it confirmed. It’s hard to say if this will make his investigation easier or that much harder, but he knows his singular file should have been a lot thicker before it even landed in his hands. There is no way an organised group like this could have gone under the radar to the extent that it has without inside support. And Ten doesn’t have the access or clearance to give them that. As it stands, Doyoung knows more now than he ever has before, yet he feels like he has been shoved right back where he started.

“I’d heard of him of course, and I knew what he had done and what I was unwittingly assisting him with. I didn’t want anything else to do with these people, and I guess I was afraid of being implicated as well, so I faked my own death.”

Sunmi’s sudden reappearance is heralded by the distressed meowing of three cats. They turn to her as one and Doyoung draws his wand at once when her fierce glare is enough to punch the air from his lungs. 

“Seulgi, get away from him!” she yells and flicks her wand at the space between them, creating a shimmering barrier between him and Seulgi. “He betrayed you, he led them straight here!” Sunmi looks almost crazed, in his delicate opinion. Her already wild hair is mussed as if she has gripped big chunks of it in her hands and her eyes are bloodshot. 

“You had another vision,” Seulgi gasps, slowly drawing away from him and to her partner. “What did you see?” She wraps her fingers slowly around Sunmi’s wrists and waits for her to look away from Doyoung before taking her wand from her fingers. She doesn’t lower it however, but keeps it pointed at Doyoung’s chest.

“Crows, I saw crows,” she says and to him it means nothing, but he sees how Seulgi’s face pales and her chest moves with a sudden deep breath. “Did you see him?” she asks and Sunmi shakes her head. “Well, it must be a coincidence then.”

She looks at him, begging him not to oppose her, but he knows there is no such thing as coincidence. “It’s not,” he says and Sunmi hisses along with the cats while Seulgi’s eyes go blank. “It can’t be a coincidence Seulgi, but _ know _ that it was not my intention to bring them here. They must have tracked me somehow.” He can’t think of how, but the old witch in Bangkok is his only viable suspect. “Do you trust me?”

Seulgi studies him for several seconds before turning to Sunmi and lowering her wand. “I trust him,” she declares and when Sunmi still looks unconvinced and almost feral, she kisses her hard on the mouth and folds a hand into her thick hair, “please trust _ me _.”

Sunmi doesn’t say anything but her changed demeanor is mirrored more obviously in her cats who go from hissing at him to meowing and rubbing against the two women’s legs. She takes her wand from Seulgi’s hand and whips it towards the doorway she had disappeared and appeared from in the time he was there and after a bit of shuffling and quaffing and banging sounds, a duffel overflowing with clothes and other belonging shoot from the doorway into her arms.

“We have to go,” she says and bends down to usher the cats inside the bag as well. They disappear completely, but he can still hear them meowing contentedly to each other.

“You go, I’ll take care of this,” he says with a flimsy gesture at everything around them. “I’ll tell them you used to live here, don’t worry. Seulgi, I will never betray your trust.”

He is caught off guard as she rushes at him and wraps her arms around his chest in a tight squeeze. Before he can react to the sudden show of affection, she is back in Sunmi’s arms, waving a teary goodbye to him before turning on the spot and disapparating. 

Once he is left alone, he gets to it. Moving his wand in hard arches, the room around him slowly falls apart. Furniture turn over and shred, curtains rip and decorations shatter, all lights go out and the food in the cupboards go stale and rot. As a finishing touch—with a wave of his hand—a blanket of dust and cobwebs falls over the place, brushed aside here and there to disrupt the perfect cover of decay. 

He slips his wand back inside his sleeve just as the sound of heavy boots on the wooden porch disrupts the peaceful silence of Seulgi’s perfect hideaway.


	7. Jaehyun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised I hadn't said anything about it so a couple notes on Jaehyun's stutter and how I write it, maybe it'll make it easier to read. When I use "..." it signifies that he's having trouble saying a word and gets caught up on the first sound, and when I use "-" it's just a small hiccup, not as noticeable.
> 
> (Small warning; It's already been established that Jaehyun's mother is sick and he deals with that in this chapter.)

Johnny had sent him a letter. It arrived just that morning. As if events have been reversed in the time since the last letter Johnny wrote him, this one asked why _ he _ had left, why _ he _ couldn’t stay. He read it once and put it aside—it’s not something he wants to think about on the first Monday after holidays—but as the day drags on it gets harder and harder to ignore. Pacing the aisles of his classroom seems like the only workable solution. The fourth years are squeezing pus from the bubotuber plant and he has already sent two students to the infirmary with arms spotted in yellow boils. He’d rather it not be at third but if he is being realistic the minimum is probably about five. They’re only halfway through the class after all. 

He doesn’t even know what to think if he allows himself to think about it. He spent a night with Johnny, yes. He also spent a night with Doyoung in much the same fashion. Doyoung hasn’t sent him a letter.

“How is it you couldn’t talk to boys a week ago and now you have _ two _ dates for Hogsmead weekend?” One of the girls whispers excitedly to her friend and he would have reprimanded her and told her to focus on the task at hand if it didn’t feel a little too much like she might as well have been talking to him. Which is weird, honestly. He shouldn’t be taking romantic advice from his fourteen year old students. Not even Jaemin, who seems more experienced in matters of flirting than he has ever been. In fairness, Jaemin is a big flirt.

In fairness. _ You say that a lot _, that voice that sounds suspiciously like Mark returns unbidden to his mind. What’s it to anyone but him if he feels the need to justify his thoughts and actions of late. What’s it to anyone that he might have something worth justifying. 

“T-try not to spill, now. Bubotu-tuber pus is very valuable,” he says to the class, smiling to himself when he gets no response. They had discovered early on that he puts little stock in decorum, as long as they don’t misbehave. 

“Professor? What’s it for anyway?” another girl asks with her hand in the air, her clean London accent breaking the still air of greenhouse three. 

“Curing acne,” he answers and absently pats his own cheek. The atmosphere of the room lifts as everyone sets to their task with new gusto and he can’t help but feel a little of the same glee he did as a teenager when everyone but him struggled with that horrid, adolescent scourge. The only pimple he ever got was in the summer before fifth year when he and Mark ate a barrel load of chocolate in one night.

A terrified yelp draws his attention to a student in the backmost row where pus from a particularly thick protrusion has covered half the boy’s face. He can already see the boils forming. 

“No worries, no worries,” he mumbles, picking a rag from his coat pocket amidst hurried steps to the flailing boy. Carelessly wiping the boy’s face, Jaehyun plucks him from his chair and gestures at the boy sharing his desk.

“Go w-with him. To the infirmary, hurry now,” he orders and the two boys scuttle off out the door. “Lesson to be learned,” he says to the class, “don’t put your face all up in a bubotuber’s business.”

The yellow clapboard and pastel green windows are even more faded than he remembered. Against the wildly blooming azaleas crowding the front door, the rest of the house looks positively drab and Jaehyun feels more at home in his home than he thought he would. _ Doyoung was my azalea _, he thinks to himself as he kicks his shoes on the chipping, green-gray door and shrugs the snow off his shoulders before pushing through. The inside is quiet, the short hallway to the living room still as he remembers it except for the thin layer of dust covering everything. Gin must have enough to do with taking care of his mom these days. 

He leaves his shoes by the door and heads for the living room first. He can hear the crackling from the fireplace through the open archway and there are candles burning on every table as well as on the mantel, and his mother’s knitting lies abandoned on the sofa along with an empty wine glass. He gathers the ball of yarn spilling over the floor and places the glass upright on the coffee table before he moves back into the hall. 

Next he tries the kitchen but all he is met with are dishes washing in the sink and the soft singing of the girl in the portrait above the fireplace. He doesn’t linger as he pushes open the door to the narrow staircase, curving around a thick pole to the upstairs. His mother shouldn’t be asleep still—it’s the middle of the day—but he wouldn't exactly be surprised.

“Mum?” he whispers as he pushes open the door to her bedroom, careful of the squeaking hinges. She’s still asleep, her back to the door and her blanket falling to the floor. He makes his way slowly into the cramped space, squeezes around the end of the bed to pull the blanket back over her figure. Without thinking about it, he stops to make sure she is breathing.

“Sweetheart?” she whispers when he pulls away, but she doesn’t open her eyes. “Yeah mum, it’s me,” he whispers and strokes a hand over her thinning hair. Today’s a bad day.

She seems smaller even than she did the last time they spoke—weak and fragile—and he feels the self-loathing building in his throat. He hates to admit it but Mark was right about all of it; as he sees what his mother has become all he feels is regret. 

“I should have been here,” he whispers with a kiss to her furrowed brow. Desperately holding back tears, he reaches for the vial of potion on the nightstand and unstoppers it.

“No more painkillers Master Jaehyun,” Gin appears before he can tip the vial over his mother’s lip, appraising him sternly. 

“But she’s still in pain,” he pleads, but the old house elf shakes her head so her ears flop. “No more painkillers.”

He is forced back as Gin pushes between him and the bed, stroking gentle hands over his mother and speaking to her softly while silently making Jaehyun feel wholly unwelcome. Instead of lingering and possibly intruding, he makes his way back down to the kitchen and throws a handful of floo powder into the hearth with enough force to make the flames hiss and lick at the picture frames on the mantle. 

“Dr. Lee, St. Mungo’s Hospital,” he says into the flames and feels their heat surround him as his view changes to that of a sparse, white office and a woman in a red coat and round glasses perched low on her nose pacing back and forth. 

“Mr. Jung!” she quips, arms shooting out to the side and she twirls instantly towards his floating face in her fireplace, dropping to her knees in front of him. “How can I help you? Is everything alright with your mother?”

“No, it’s a bad day,” he chokes past the ball of sadness regret anger, whatever it is he is feeling at the moment. “You’re last letter was almost two months ago, I just want to know what’s happening. How much longer is she going to have to wait?”

Dr. Lee sighs and smooths her coat down with her palms, looking away from him and to the white brick of her fireplace. “We are doing the best we can, but I’m sorry to say we are still nowhere close to finding a cure. First we need to isolate the illness and it’s proving more difficult than we could have imagined.” She goes quiet but he only stares at her. She’s dumbing it down for him even though he doesn’t need her to. 

When he doesn’t relent, she sighs again but goes on. “We have ruled out the possibility of a curse,” she says and brings him back to when a team of curse-breakers meticulously searched every inch of their house for anything that could’ve been cursed. “It would’ve been a lot more focused if that was the case. We are currently studying every single bacteria found in the patient’s systems and how they act with each other to see if it could be a naturally occurring illness so you can see, we’re getting desperate. I have had more patients dying on my watch this last year than I have in the other twenty years put to-”

“How about the hallucinations?” he interrupts her mid-word, but she recovers quickly. “We recently found traces of mescaline in one of the deceased, we’ve concluded that is what caused their hallucinations. I assume you’re familiar with it.”

Oh, is he. Though his experience with it was a lot more fun. 

“Did you get my research?” he asks, quickly ridding his mind of the image of Mark—even more relaxed than normal—giggling about talking toads.

She nods, adjusts her glasses and smooths her hands over her coat again. “I did. It was very thorough, good research.” _ But ultimately useless _, he hears in her hesitant tone of voice.

“So it’s not poison?” he asks only to confirm what he already suspects. The algae he studied in southern europe had the properties to combat almost any known toxin—he tested a wide variety of them himself.

“We don’t want to say a definite no, but it seems unlikely.”

“Thank you doctor,” he says and she tilts her head in a small bow and the last thing he sees before pulling out of the flames is her face falling in a grimace. 

He decides to make their dinner himself. Gin is still at his mother’s bedside and he feels the strong need to do something with his hands if only to distract his mind for a short while. When the soup is simmering on the stove, he wanders through the house to the little library nook tucked behind the fireplace in the living room. He lets his fingers glide softly along the spines of books he read as a child, or watched his father read late at night and other books he never paid much mind to. He stops at one as it draws his eye; _ Twenty thousand leagues under the seas _, Jules Verne in his original french. Doyoung probably reads them in french. 

He pulls it from the shelf and takes it with him back to the kitchen where he sits down at the table and opens it, waits for the translation spell to kick in and begins to read. 

Exactly how long he spends reading with the gentle bubbling of the leek soup in the background, he doesn’t know, but the world outside the windows is pitch black by the time Gin shakes him out of it by floating a bowl of soup in front of his face.

“Master Jaehyun should know Gin is very disappointed with him, but Gin will still feed Master Jaehyun.” 

“Yes please Gin, feed me the food _ I _ made,” he says, looking up at her wrinkly face just barely reaching over the tabletop. “Little brat,” she grumbles and he can’t help smiling. They’ve always bothered each other this way and he is happy to see that hasn’t changed despite everything. 

“How is she?” he asks tentatively, feeling like fleeing while at the same time needing to know the truth. 

“Mistress talks to dead people, not very good,” Gin says, hopping to sit on the table and gathering her spindly legs under her yellow dress and apron. “Gin tries talking to Mistress often, but Gin no good.”

“That’s not true Gin,” he says, looking down into his soup. “You’ve d-done more than enough.” He’s the one who is no good. The one who abandoned his mother when she needed him because he couldn’t handle seeing it. 

“I’ve been so selfish,” he sobs, the tears taking him by surprise. Gin is less so, only reaching over to rest a small hand on top of his head, holding it there as he cries quietly. 

“Master Jaehyun mourns what he has yet to lose,” she says, her squeaky voice pitched low in an attempt to sooth him. “How is life?” she asks when that doesn’t work. “Master Jaehyun has boyfriends?” He laughs at how her wrong grammar for once hits the mark. Never in his life would he have thought he could ever have _ two _ men who were interested in him. He avoids answering by wiping his face with the heel of his hand, scrubbing roughly at his eyes as if to punish them for crying. 

“Don’t let old master beat you, Master Jaehyun,” Gin says and a short laugh bursts from his mouth. Old master is what she calls his father, and he didn’t miss the hint of disdain in her voice. “Move on so fast he did,” she grumbles, but Jaehyun knows better. He remembers meeting _ Dale of the Wizengamot _ years ago—many years before his father left them—so he was never really that surprised.

“But I’ll have a sister,” he says, feeling the need to defend his father from the old house elf’s judgemental attitude.

“Hm, sister-smichter. Adoption! It’s not real blood Master Jaehyun,” she says, showing more traditionalism than he thought she possessed. A trait inherited from her former masters, he surmises. They were traditionalists in nauseating ways.

They are both silent for a while after that; Jaehyun barely touches his soup, mostly just stirs it around in his bowl while Gin turns pages in his book without reading.

“Is she awake? Can I see her?” he asks at long last and Gin studies him with wide, round eyes for several more seconds and says, “Master Jaehyun does not ask for permission in his own home.” He swallows, feeling sick as bile inexplicably moves through his throat and back down into his stomach. He shouldn’t be allowed to call this place _ his _ home.

Instead of lingering on it, he takes the other prepared bowl of soup in one hand and tucks his book under his arm and heads for the staircase. The steps creak loudly under his weight.

His mother has turned around in bed and is facing the door as he comes through and while her eyes are still closed, a small smile lifts the corners of her mouth.

“I brought you soup if you’re hungry,” he whispers, putting the bowl down on the shelf above the bed. When his mother says nothing, he sits down at the foot of the bed, leant back against the sturdy wood frame so he can see her and opens his book.

He spends the weekend at home, verbally sparring with Gin and caring for his mother as the fever comes and goes and her hallucinations only grow stronger. Early Sunday morning he decides to make a trip to Diagon Alley to get his mother a gift and leaves Gin with instructions to tell her that he’ll be back soon in case she wakes up before then. He hadn’t fully planned to, but when he five minutes later finds himself outside the door to Johnny’s room at the Leaky Cauldron he figures he has already made his decision. 

He knocks three times and waits with his hands inside the folds of his winter coat as sounds of shuffling seeps through the wood several seconds before the door swings open.

“Jaehyun!” Johnny exclaims, surging forward to plant a kiss on his cheek before he has time to deny him. “I wasn’t expecting you,” he says and Jaehyun knows he means at all. He didn’t expect to see him again at all.

“Wi… will you walk with me?” Jaehyun asks, feeling uncomfortable having any sort of conversation in the middle of the hallway and even more uncomfortable at the thought of being with Johnny again in such close proximity to a bed. Johnny nods enthusiastically and grabs his coat from a chair beside the door and pulls it on as he steps outside, slamming the door closed while sheepishly placing a hand in the middle of Jaehyun’s back.

“I need to-to get something,” he says evasively once they are outside in the cold alley, almost devoid of people so early in the morning. 

“Of course, lead the way,” Johnny says and there is something so exaggeratedly cheery and almost strained about the way he says it. Like he is trying his best to please Jaehyun. He can feel Johnny’s eyes stick to the side of his head when he leads them off to the side and towards the stairs to Knockturn Alley, but no matter how skeptical he may be, Johnny stays walking at his side.

“I… I’m sorry I left the way I did,” Jaehyun says once the walls of the narrow alley close around them, as if they provided the protection he needed to start the conversation that needed to be had. “I didn’t kno...know what that was—what it meant—and I…”

“You got scared?” Johnny asks; while valid, an entirely wrong assumption. He opens his mouth to deny it but all that comes out is a croaked, repetitive sound. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay, you don’t have to be nervous,” Johnny says and takes his hands in his, stroking the backs of them with his thumbs. Instead of sooth it only aggravates him.

“I!” he says with so much force it hurts his throat and pulls his hands from Johnny’s. Talking seems so much easier now that he only got that infernal little word out of the way. “Was not scared! _ I wanted to hurt you _!” He turns abruptly on his heel and hurries down the alley to the intersecting street and turns left. He can hear Johnny hurrying after him and isn’t surprised when he is just as abruptly brought to a halt by Johnny pulling at his arm.

“I get it. Like I hurt you. I get it,” Johnny says and he sounds almost relieved. Relieved to have understood Jaehyun maybe. “Jaehyun the way I left you, it was not right and I regret it so much every day. I just … I had no choice and I know that sounds like a ridiculous, unbelievable excuse, but it’s not. It’s an explanation, not much of one I know, but-” Johnny’s voice falls to a whisper and his eyes fall to the ground and his grip on Jaehyun’s arm loosens and then disengages entirely. “All I’m asking for is a second chance, but I understand if you don’t want to give me one.”

Jaehyun doesn’t know what to say, and even if he did he doesn’t think he could say it in a way Johnny would understand. There’s too much going on in his head, too much loss and sadness and anger and a previously unknown want to hurt that he doesn’t know how to sort through it. But he also misses Johnny—misses how Johnny made him feel—so maybe all the rest doesn’t matter as much. Maybe he doesn’t _ have to _ sort through it all, maybe if he were to just _ be _ with Johnny then it would all work itself out.

Deciding to hell with it, he surges forward and grips Johnny’s coat with one hand, tilting his chin up to kiss him. He can tell Johnny wasn’t expecting it, feels it in the way he retreats at first, physically, but then he is being pulled closer and the cold isn’t as cold anymore with Johnny’s arms wrapped around him.

The purple door of The Horned Violet is a dramatic contrast to the grey-brown brick of the buildings around it. Black ovate leafs hang in mass from the awning above, seeming to grow right out of the walls.

“Do you need more fertilizer?” Johnny asks, but more subdued as if the dark magic that lies like a cloying scent in the air around them makes him nervous. Jaehyun has been here enough times that it no longer bothers him. He only shakes his head, fearing the block in his throat that he can still feel.

He pushes the purple door open to a rush of sweet air hitting him in the face and steps inside the dimly lit shop. Yuta is at the counter wrangling money from a grumpy-looking customer in a ratted tweed jacket, but they smile when Jaehyun waves at them. Instead of lingering in the doorway like Johnny does, he slips nimbly past the tall shelf of your common gardening equipment and to his favourite display in the whole shop. The single stem of bleeding hearts sings as he draws near, a soft wispy tone as its pink petals move gently. Yuta must have just watered them as there are tiny water drops hanging on the white tips of the flowers, ready to bleed into the soil.

“Bit lost ain’t we, mudblood,” a rough voice clearly belonging to the other customer sounds from behind and Jaehyun turns quickly on his heels as anger surges through him. 

“I’m not lost at all Sir, have a good day.” Johnny is holding the door open for the foul man, smiling as if nothing is wrong, as if he didn’t understand the meaning and severity of the slur or didn’t understand it was meant for him. But Jaehyun knows Johnny well enough to see the tightness around his eyes and how his shoulders are held slightly back, making him look far bigger than anyone else in the room. Yuta hurries over as soon as the door closes, eyes wide and hands reaching in front of them as if to take Johnny by the arms.

“I’m so sorry! I can’t believe that happened to you in my shop! I’m so _ very _ sorry!” Johnny takes Yuta’s flailing hands in his, laughing gently. “It’s okay, what he said isn’t on you,” he says, in the same gentle voice Jaehyun has overheard him use when talking to his mother on that pocket phone of his. 

The comparison his mind makes draws his attention to Yuta’s body and how it has changed; the potions they talked about the last time Jaehyun was here have worked as they should. 

But however their body has changed, Yuta is still the same person Jaehyun has always known and he clamps a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter when Yuta reacts predictably to Johnny’s soothing tone with an eyebrow raise and a slight pursing of their mouth. 

“An American,” Yuta says, that phony customer service voice all but gone. “Never been too fond of Americans.” They turn to him then, eyes sparkling in competition with their gleaming purple-ish hair, and Jaehyun is pulled into a hug before he knows it.

“You’ve made yourself scarce, kid,” Yuta says into his ear and raises a hand to ruffle his hair. “Though I suppose a Hogwarts Professor shouldn’t be seen lurking in Knockturn Alley too often.”

“Cou-ould be bad for my reputation.” He smiles at Yuta and briefly hugs them back. 

“Yes, perception is everything,” Yuta says when they part as if perception has ever meant anything of value to them.

A loud clutter draws their attention to Johnny who is holding several tin pots in his arms with several more lying at his feet and rolling over the floor. “I’m so sorry, I knocked it with my foot,” he explains but Yuta only laughs and the pots are back on the shelf with a simple wave of their wand. “First, who is he? Second, how can I help you?” Yuta turns their attention back to him again but it’s Johnny who stretches a hand out in greeting and introduces himself.

“So this is Johnny,” Yuta says with a wink in his direction, taking Johnny’s hand with two of their fingers and giving it a little shake. Despite the years it has been since Yuta moved to England, hand-shaking is a practice they prefer not to partake in.

Jaehyun knows Johnny is looking at him—probably wondering what sort of things he has told his friends about him—and he keeps his eyes firmly on Yuta or the shop around them to avoid his gaze. 

“I want a gift,” he says, turning to look one last time at the bleeding hearts, “for my mum.”

Yuta studies him for a long while, tapping their chin with a finger. “I have just the thing,” they say eventually and disappears into the back room of the shop.

“You okay?” Johnny asks quietly once they’re alone, runs a hand over Jaehyun’s shoulder and gently grips his neck the way he likes it. The words tumble to the tip of his tongue and he almost tells Johnny about his mom and how bad it is and how he thinks he’s going to lose her soon, but changes his mind at the last second.

“I’m fine,” he says instead, “j...just want to ge-get her a gift.”

Yuta comes back as quickly as they left, carrying a large pot with an espalier tree already heavy with dark purple plums. “I remembered you said she likes plums,” Yuta says and deposits the small tree at Jaehyun’s feet. “I was going to use this to grow more but haven’t gotten around to it. But no matter, I want you to have it.”

Jaehyun smiles at them, fishing through his pockets for his coin purse, but Yuta waves him off. “Free of charge, just show me those cute dimples of yours one more time,” they say, poking his cheek with a sharp, bandaged finger. He does as asked, smiling brightly at Yuta and keeps his tongue when they coo at him and pinches his cheek as if he was a child.

“I mea… I meant to ask. Yuta is still your name?” he asks, fumbling with his words when Johnny reaches for the tree just as he lifts it in its pot and they go back and forth a little before it ends up in the crook of Johnny’s arm.

“Yeah,” Yuta sighs, looking back and forth between them with a fond twinkle in their eye. “I like my name. My mom gave it to me, just like she gave me so many other great things, and I want to honour that.” 

“That’s good, I’m happy,” he mumbles, unable to say anything more for the fear of it all being gibberish. He can feel a headache coming on already; the weekend with his mom has drained his strength to the point where talking without stuttering too much seems impossible.

“Thanks kiddo,” Yuta says and pats his head, bringing a resigned smile to his lips.

_ I’m only a year younger than you _, he thinks to himself but Yuta must have read it in his put-upon sigh and eye roll because they laugh and say, “it’s not your age that makes you a kid, but your string of bad decisions.”

They’re walking down the street again when Johnny, predictably, opens his mouth.

“So Yuta is a woman or?” he says slowly, clearly hesitant on how to phrase himself. 

“They’re transgendered,” Jaehyun mumbles and finds that talking in a lower volume makes his tongue easier to control. “They?” Johnny asks and Jaehyun really hopes the doubtful tone he hears lacing Johnny’s voice doesn’t mean something bad.

“Yes, Yuta’s pro-pronouns are they and them.”

“But … Yuta is _ trans _gendered?” Jaehyun can tell from the way he hesitated about it that Johnny’s usage of Yuta’s name was an attempt at avoiding pronouns all-together, and his continued questioning makes something harden in Jaehyun’s chest.

Stepping in front of Johnny to stop him in his tracks, Jaehyun looks up at him through his eyelashes and steels himself. “Johnny,” he says, slowly and clearly, stretching his words out to keep his stutter at bay, “you don’t have to make sense of it. You just have to accept it.”

He can’t say if what he sees in Johnny’s face is surprise or contrition, a mix of both or something else completely, but to Johnny’s credit he doesn’t linger in it for long.

“Of course,” he says, nodding several times and taking a deep breath, “of course, you’re right. And I do, you know, I didn’t mean anything bad.” He looks pleadingly at Jaehyun and he’s so damn genuine all the time that Jaehyun knows he means what he says.

Taking Johnny’s hands in his, he tilts his chin up in a silent request that Johnny meets with a relieved laugh. They kiss in the middle of the street for longer than should be decent, but Jaehyun doesn’t care when kissing Johnny feels almost like it used to.

When they pull apart Jaehyun finally notices where they’ve stopped. The street curves in a gentle slope from Yuta’s shop to Borgin&Burkes near the mouth of the alley and directly to their left is a tattoo parlor, the exact one he went to with Doyoung when he was sixteen. Where he got his first and only tattoo. 

Touching the back of his neck, Jaehyun makes a rash decision and pulls Johnny by the hand with him inside the darkened parlor. The owner is still the same old, grey-haired woman he remembers and she looks at him with recognition once he steps into the single light at the front desk. 

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says and waves him over to the chair, the ball of light following in her footsteps like a loyal pet.

“Ho-how did-” he stumbles after her and obediently sits down when she pulls at his shoulder. “I remember every face that comes through here,” she says, shuffling some papers around in her hands before throwing them to the floor. 

“What can I do for you, love?” She looks at him with a funny little smile as he fumbles to pull his shoulder bag into his lap. He knows exactly what he wants.

He pulls the old copy of _ Twenty thousand leagues under the seas _ from his bag and opens it, sifting through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for. The picture didn’t seem to belong in the book—the paper is of a different size and shade—as if someone simply left it there. It’s an ink drawing, Captain Nemo’s submarine is being pulled into a whirlpool and the writing at the bottom simply reads _ Nautilus End _.

“Could you inc… incor… could you have the title in the whirlpool?” he sighs, frowning to himself when he is forced to use simpler words. Not being able to express himself like he wants to is an exhausting thing. 

The old woman takes the drawing from his hand with respectful care and places it on the creaking trolley next to her before covering it with a blank sheet of paper. He watches as she puts her wand in the middle of the paper and his drawing slowly bleeds into it, now with the words _ Nautilus End _ in small letters built into the water funnels.

“Where do you want it?” she asks and he moves quickly on the chair so his left side is facing her and pulls his jacket and woolen sweater off, holding both out to Johnny who takes them with a mildly surprised smile on his face, struggling only a little to juggle his clothes and the modest tree.

“Here,” he mumbles, lifting his left arm and running a finger over his ribs. The old witch hums to herself and moves his arm a little more over his chest as she traces out a shape against his side.

“It’ll hurt more here, love,” she says with a tap of fingers to the back of his neck, where his old tattoo is. That one had barely stung as she traced it into his skin.

He hums in reply, certain it can’t be that bad. She huffs through her nose at him, but keeps any comments to herself and only taps the chair with her wand to make it stretch out and widen under him. 

“Lay down,” she says and he moves carefully around on the chair-turned-bed and lifts his feet onto it. She guides him gently into the position she needs him in and looms over him, points her wand to the ceiling and taps it like a syringe. 

The first he feels is the cool touch of the paper on his skin and then the tingle as its magic is transferred to him, leaving a faint shimmering outline of the drawing. 

“Where’s the other boy?” she asks and puts her wand to his rib, slowly starting to trace ink into his skin. The pain hits him instantly, so much more than he expected, and he forgets her question as soon as she asks it.

“The charming pureblood,” she continues and somehow her voice punches through the haze of pain in his mind enough to make him understand who she is talking about. He glances quickly at Johnny and sees him shuffling awkwardly just inside the door. He can’t see the witch's face, but it hadn’t escaped his notice that she never really acknowledged Johnny’s presence which, considering the neighbourhood, isn’t all that surprising. Johnny may be a wizard but he still carries himself like a muggle.

He can only shake his head as the pain makes him clamp his teeth on his bottom lip hard enough to numb it.

“I ask because this is his drawing,” she continues, not once lifting her head even when he stares at her with wide eyes, all the air punched from his lungs. 

“No-no it’s,” he gasps as much from the sudden influx of emotions hitting him as from the stinging pain as she traces a long, curving line into his skin. It can’t be Doyoung’s drawing; the book has been in his bookshelf for years, he’s pretty sure his father bought it at one of those book fairs he always went to when Jaehyun was a kid. It’s simply impossible.

She hums at him—a short, disbelieving sound—but she doesn’t say anything more and works quietly to finish the tattoo. 

He thinks he’s grown numb to the pain by the time she places a patch over his already healing skin and helps him sit up. 

“Keep the patch on for a couple hours,” she says while Johnny helps him into his sweater and coat, running a hand over the back of his head and being a little more touchy than strictly necessary. “It’ll be 12 galleons.”

He pays her and leaves the parlor with a small bow, blinking in the harsh sunlight spilling into the cobbled alley. 

“Are you alright?” Johnny asks and he nods, breathing deeply of the cold air and wrapping his hands around Johnny’s bicep. 

“I didn’t know you wanted a tattoo,” he continues, seeming content with their closeness for all but a second. “Who was she talking about?” he asks and Jaehyun has to bite his tongue to hold in the scoff that almost escapes him at Johnny’s predictability. 

“No one, an o-old friend” he mumbles, slipping a hand down Johnny’s arm to tangle their fingers and gazes decidedly in front of them when he lies, “I haven’t seen him in years.”


	8. Doyoung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plot thickens! so this chapter introduced some new things that i had not planned (i was really not holding the reins while writing this) so it looks like the fic is gonna be longer than i anticipated, so yay?  
anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter! and please tell me if you did, comments really keep me going<3

He holds his breath as the sliding door creaks open on rusted hinges. There are no voices, no other footsteps, nothing to tell him if it’s one person or more and he keeps his wand at the ready, turnt just enough to hide it behind his leg. When the door finally opens and a man steps through he has to force himself not to let out a sound. He doesn’t know why he’s so surprised; maybe because the only image regarding the _Moonshiner_ he has ever known is the crude drawing he made himself more than a year ago. But the face that greets him is nothing like what he had expected. The large, square face of the man is topped with hair like straw and his frame is tall and compact, matching his heavy gait. 

“You,” the man grunts and even in that small word Doyoung can hear his northern accent. He’s British, that’s for sure. A real archetypical brit with a bad attitude. He has a band around his left forearm—stitched to his green army coat—and something about it makes his stomach turn.    
“Where’s the woman?” the man asks, but Doyoung stands his ground. “Where’s the witch? Are you daft? Where the bloody hell is she?”

“If you’re looking for Seulgi then you’d have more luck a little further south,” Doyoung breaks in, elevating his voice to drown him out. The man stops, his gaze flitting—to Doyoung’s surprise—south, where there is nothing but sea for miles and miles. 

“This is the last place she lived, but as you can see,” he drags a finger through the dust on the side table, “no one’s been here for months.”

The man moves further into the room and no matter how aggressive his bearing is, his steps are careful, cutting a path parallel to Doyoung to maintain distance. His unease is made plain when he pulls his wand from his coat pocket and points it loosely in front of him.

“How’d you find this place?” the man asks, his head jerking pointedly. 

“Same way you did I imagine,” Doyoung answers, raising an eyebrow and biting the inside of his cheek when the man grunts in affirmation. The old witch. He’s sorely tempted to pay her another visit once he gets out of this. This whole  _ Moonshiner _ business began in the eastern parts of Asia, he should have realised he was walking into enemy territory, so to speak. That however, does not explain this man’s existence. 

“I’ll admit; you’re not what I expected,” Doyoung says and before the man can so much as blink he turns on his heel and points his wand right at his chest, hitting him with a curse that sends him flying straight through the wall. He barely has time to enjoy the sight of the man slumped against the tiki dresser in the bedroom, covered in debris, before the sound of another set of footsteps on the porch outside draws his attention. Another man, shorter and darker but still undeniably british, bursts through the door with his wand raised, alert enough to counter Doyoung’s spell. Unlike his companion, this man is quick on the trigger and it’s all Doyoung can do to protect himself while countering with only moderately accurate curses. Out the corner of his eye he can see the man he sent sailing through the wall start to stir, pushing debris off his body and shaking his head in confusion, and he sends a silent curse with a whip of his hand that knocks the man unconscious. At least. 

“Bloody bastard,” the man with the dark hair and the quick hand yells at him and unleashes a flurry of curses that sets the room on fire and caves in the ceiling and Doyoung backpedals quickly onto the wraparound porch and sprints to the front of the house. He was planning on getting his assailant from behind and blasting him to whatever hell he believes in; he was not planning on being hit in the chest with a glowing red stunning curse as soon as he rounded the corner. The last thing he sees before his vision fades to black is the smug face of the dark haired man grinning down at him. Of course, there were three of them.

When he comes to, he can see about as much as he could when his consciousness was slipping away from him. He is somewhere dark and dry—the dust hangs heavy in the air he breathes and the blindfold over his eyes irritates his skin. 

“You’re awake,” an unfamiliar voice says right into his ear. “They kept stunning you so I wasn’t sure if you were gonna wake up in the end.”

He groans and mumbles something that was meant to be  _ how long _ but sounded more like  _ oolong _ . 

“Three days, I think, three meals at least. Yeah, we don’t really get much sunlight in here, or moonlight or anything really.” The man pulls at his blindfold and soon enough Doyoung is blinking spots out of his eyes as the faint, yellow light of a single bulb almost blinds him. He looks down at his companion, crouching on the dusty floor in front of him, and he is clearly a prisoner but the smile on his face seems genuine enough.

“I’m Taeil, Moon Taeil,” he says and a chill unlike anything he’s ever felt runs its sticky fingers down Doyoung’s back. 

He doesn’t believe in coincidence. Thinks there are far too many forces at work in the universe for him to end up in a tiny prison cell with the elusive piece of shit who calls himself the  _ Moonshiner _ like he’s some sort of god amongst men, by mere coincidence. He wants to hit him.

“Careful now, they might be of subpar intelligence but they know how to tie a knot,” Moon Taeil says when he struggles to get a hand free. He’s right, the rope around his wrists doesn’t budge other than to chafe his skin something bad. “What’s your name?”

He looks at the man properly, takes in his overgrown, shaggy hair and flat face. His skin is clean but his clothes are ragged, holes and rips in the fabric that spell excessive use. He wonders how long this man has been a prisoner here, if he has been here as long as Doyoung has been looking for him. Seulgi said it was three years ago when she was first approached for her pearls—probably by the same men who have now taken him prisoner—and he wonders if Moon Taeil was the one who sent them, or if he was already chained in this small room.

“Donghyun,” he says, comfortable in his brother’s lack of presence to disguise himself with his name.    
“Ah, Korean. Me too,” Moon Taeil says as if Doyoung hadn’t already surmised as much. His name and his face and his stiff english accent made it more than obvious. The fact that the  _ Moonshiner  _ first appeared in South-Korea is merely explained by his presence.

He feels an inexplicable urge to send a very succinct howler to Lee Taeyong, Head of the International Law Department in Seoul about letting this go on right under his nose, but it is doused by the fact that the men who captured him—who probably captured the  _ Moonshiner _ as well—are decidedly british. He has the feeling this is much bigger than one man and a couple deadly potions on the blackmarket. 

“Why they take you?” Moon Taeil says as he shuffles to the side and starts tugging gently at the knots keeping Doyoung tied to his chair. Doyoung considers warning him that freeing his hands might not be in his best interest, but the desire to punch the  _ Moonshiner _ is fading fast.

“I wasn’t quick enough in killing them,” he says when the rope falls from his wrists and blood rushes back into his hands, making them tingle. “Yeah, me too.” Moon Taeil laughs and pats him good-naturedly on the shoulder as if they were bonding over failed killings. “Though, I’ve never been good with a wand unless it’s for stirring.”

“You’re a potioneer?” he asks, intending to play clueless as long as he can. Moon Taeil gives a noncommittal shrug and a nod—as if he simply dabbles in the art in his spare time, and his name isn’t notorious and his peers revere him as a pioneer in modern times. He remembers the care with which Kun had handled the vial with the remains of this man’s work—and the greed in his eyes that he had tried so hard to hide—and a derisive snort escapes him before he can stop it. 

“It’s a real art you know,” Moon Taeil says at once, as if it’s a reflex developed over many years and countless dismissals of his work. “It’s not wand-waving and simple incantations that anyone can do with a bit of practice and memorisation. Potion-making requires precision, discipline and a steady hand as well as mind. Not just anyone can master it, not just anyone can  _ understand _ it.” He falls silent, pursing his mouth, as if he realised he let his ego run away with him. 

“Okay,” Doyoung says, maybe a little inspired by Moon Taeil’s love for his craft though he would never admit it. He rises slowly on shaky legs while rubbing his sore wrists and does a full roundabout to take in every inch of the small—maybe three by three square meters—barely lit room. There is a sliver of a window in the lower back corner, most of it boarded up and there is what looks like a brick wall on the other side. It’s an oddly placed window, but he doesn’t care for the architecture of this place unless it can help him escape and that window is no good. The only other break in the bare shiplap walls is a brown metal door. He puts his hand on it, expecting a thrum of magic through his fingers and he’s not disappointed. He checks the walls next, but they’re as silent as the grave. A magical door set in weak shiplap walls? If this is a prison cell then where are the bars? 

He pats his pockets and pulls his sleeves up just to be sure, but of course they took his wand. Not that it matters much. 

“Yeah, they took your wand when they brought you in. And the door is locked and there are guards in every corridor and they have wolf … companions—real wolves not werewolves, mind you—roaming the grounds. There’s no escape,” Moon Taeil sighs and Doyoung doesn’t doubt he has tried just that before.

“Wolf companions?”

“Yeah, one of them trained wolves or something.”

Unsurprisingly, the wolves are what stops him. He has never been fond of animals, especially not of the variety with sharp claws and teeth that can rip him apart and would probably eat his remains. He doesn’t doubt he can make it out, but if his captors are the slightest bit intelligent they’ll have placed a Fidelius Charm on the property and he won’t be able to apparate until he gets beyond its limits. If he could only…

A sharp knock on the metal door startles him from his thoughts and a second later Moon Taeil is tugging him away so hard he stumbles over his own feet. The door swings open with such speed and force it would have shattered him if his cellmate had been any slower. 

“Wakey wakey,” a low, disinterested voice says from the darkness on the other side and a small trolley is pushed across the threshold, a plate of bread and a couple sausages and a glass of water rattling on top of it. Moon Taeil pulls it all the way inside and the door slams shut again with the brute force of magic.

“Yeah, that’s for you. I already ate,” Moon Taeil says as if it’s room service in a three star hotel. His apathy is concerning. 

The bread looks unappetizing, but he snags a sausage from the plate and chews it down. He is starting to feel famished as the shock of his awakening recedes and so he eats the second sausage as well in a hurry and because it’s not enough, the stale piece of dry bread goes as well, swallowed down with the water. He’s never had a worse meal in his life, but at the same time it was also the best meal he’s ever had. Imprisonment does that to you. 

Moon Taeil sits in silence in the chair in the middle of the room—the only furniture in the entire room. He taps his fingers on his thighs, one at a time in a constant pattern from his right pinky to his left pinky and then back again. To Doyoung’s eyes it looks like he’s counting seconds. 

“Are you waiting for something?” he asks, looking at the man’s distorted image through his empty water glass. It really should’ve been bigger.

“Yeah … they take me to the kitchen every other day. Should be any minute now.” 

Doyoung almost asks him to sneak back another sausage for him if he can, but stops himself in time when he realises that  _ kitchen _ in this context probably doesn’t mean what he thinks it does. He remembers his potions professor always used to say it was  _ time to cook some magic _ at the beginning of every class.

“They make you … cook, for them?” he asks and he’s sure Moon Taeil understands that  _ he _ understands if only by the awkward way he phrases himself. Moon Taeil smiles, still tapping his fingers and Doyoung finds himself counting alongside him in his head—seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. 

“Yeah, I make a few potions for them and they sell it for big money on the black market. Big bucks? Is it bucks?” Moon Taeil rambles and then looks at him with such genuine interest it almost puts him at ease.

“That’s an expression,” he says softly, digging his nails discreetly into his palms to force himself back on track. “What about you? What do you get?”

Moon Taeil shrugs, throwing his arms out and smiling wryly as if to say  _ you’re looking at it. _

The door opens then and from the unnatural darkness on the other side the short, dark haired man with the quick trigger-hand steps inside, sending him a look that’s both hateful and full of spite. Of course; this man failed to take him down on his own, even  _ after _ he killed his friend. He wonders for a moment why they would leave him unguarded like this after simply taking away his wand when this man would have seen him use wandless magic, but he doesn’t question it and even so, he’s quickly distracted by the tattooed band around the man’s bare upper arm. He is really getting a bad feeling about those.

“Come on petite Moon, it’s cooking time,” he says with terrible pronunciation, his voice lighter than Doyoung had expected. Everything else about the man is just dark.

Moon Taeil follows him without resistance, only sending Doyoung a small wave before he disappears into the blackness of the corridor. Instant darkness powder; he recognises it now. 

He listens closely in the spare seconds before the door flies shut, but the only sound on the other side is the footsteps of Moon Taeil and  _ Lucky Luke _ . No sound of clothes shuffling or air shifting around another person to indicate there being any guards outside their cell. The only thing keeping him in is a magical door that he very much doubts he could move without his wand, and it’s too dense to force himself through. 

The wall it is.

He waits for half a minute—counting the seconds against his thigh—to ensure the other two have at least left the corridor, before placing his palm flat on the wall. Closing his eyes, he breathes slowly  _ in-two-three  _ and  _ out-two-three-four _ and calls to the forefront of his mind an image from his childhood. Joy’s dollhouse, a tiny figurine on her nightstand until she touched it and it unfolded like an accordion, growing bigger and opening up to reveal rooms with miniature furniture and highly detailed dolls to live in them. He feels the warmth of days spent in Joy’s room spreading through his body; of times spent creating stories and adventures wilder than any he has been on in his adult days, always with his best friend by his side. 

When he opens his eyes the walls have folded together on either side like the bellows of an accordion, creating a hole big enough for him to fit through. He steps through and with a quiet  _ snap _ the wall rights itself, leaving no trace of his passing other than the faint wisp of his magic lingering in the wood. The corridor is, as he’d suspected, empty. It’s short and narrow like in any other Victorian mansion, because that’s what this is. A big, old, dilapidated Victorian mansion, probably somewhere in the English countryside. At least they’ve done him the service of taking him home. 

Heavy footsteps echo from around the corner and he hurries the other way, slipping through a door at the end after checking for any lumbering idiots on the other side. The room he comes into has clearly once been a grand dining room; the royal blue wallpaper is peeling and the wood panels along the lower half of the walls are scratched and dingy, no longer the pure snow colour they must have been. Unlike his cell, this room has  _ some _ furniture in it, though all of it is broken and torn, chairs lying on their side and the long dining table resembles more a ramp the way it wobbles on one and a half legs.

His mouth twists in distaste; he doesn’t like seeing beautiful things reduced to dust in this way. He thinks of his own home and how his house elves should be hard at work with their weekly cleaning, assuming they aren’t slacking off in his absence. He wonders if his mother has been by, though why he would think that he doesn’t know. Maybe Irene, when he didn’t report back, would have gone there to look for him. He knows his brother shouldn’t miss him, if Moon Taeil was correct and he was out cold for three days then it’s not yet time for his weekly visit. That is, of course, assuming they took him straight here after they ambushed him. He pushes through a door at the other side of the room into what looks to have been a library, though all the shelves have long since been emptied. There is a leather armchair by the empty hearth, polished clean as if it’s been used regularly. 

The scene in front of him makes him think of a happier time, with him and Jaehyun drinking together in front of a lit fireplace. His hand ghosts over the empty bookshelf as if looking for something and a smile tugs at the corner of his lip as he remembers the explicit diary of a sixteen-hundred-something man that Jaehyun for some reason had in his. A chilly draft claws at him and he longs for the warmth of Jaehyun’s arms and wonders if he’ll ever be lucky enough to have that again.

He hears the floorboards creak a second before the doorknob turns and he slips hastily into the space between two bookshelves and wills the shadows to wrap around him. It won’t make him invisible, but hopefully it can keep whoever it is from noticing him. Assuming his magic holds up; it’s never as reliable without his wand.

At first he thinks it’s an elderly man walking slowly over the dusty floor, the grey hair sticking out of his hood and his hunched posture seeming enough evidence of it. The face however, once it lifts from the papyrus it was studying, is smooth and relatively young-looking, the lower half covered with a short and thick, silver beard. He’s quite handsome actually; if Doyoung was attracted to older men he might’ve been his type, but he’s never seen the appeal. 

He catches a glimpse of the papyrus when the man slumps into the leather armchair; the runes he can’t interpret but the illustrations are clear enough—Blood Magic.

“If you thought that gap would conceal you then you can’t have played a lot of hide and seek as a kid,” the man says—or hums really, his voice is that pleasant—startling Doyoung enough to make him knock his knee against the wall. He doesn’t let it show as he steps out of the shadows, looking down at the man still engrossed in his Blood Magic ritual.

“Now those shoes are far too nice to be walking these halls,” the man says and finally looks up. “And that face is far too pretty. Are you ordained or do I get the pleasure of that?”

For once, Doyoung finds himself at a complete loss. From the look of this man and how he carries himself he had assumed he must be the leader, but he doesn’t even seem to know who he is or even care that he should be locked up in a cell and not wandering about freely. Lost of his wits all he can do is stare blankly, a questioning sound catching in his throat. This man’s strange behaviour aside, he can feel the thrum of magic hanging around him like a dark cloud. One he’s sure would rain blood instead of water. 

Doyoung has been around a lot of dark wizards all his life, from growing up a Pureblood to becoming an Auror, and he’s familiar with how they feel. This is nothing like that. This man’s magic is thick and cloying like blood and it feels suffocating.

“Mm, neither. You’re the man they brought in a few days ago. A pity. Oh well, run along then. Exit is that way,” the man goes back to his ritual as if Doyoung no longer holds any interest to him, only waving a hand in the vague direction he had come from. 

Doyoung watches him for several more seconds but the man is consumed by his text and doesn’t pay him the slightest attention. However unlikely, it does seem like the man intends to let him go, that he has no interest in his continued imprisonment or the fact that he killed one of his men. Presuming he is actually their leader. 

Deciding to trust the man’s indifference, he crosses the room quickly to the other side and opens the door, but just as he slips through the man speaks again.

“It’s a broken infinity symbol. The band they carry,” he says and when Doyoung looks back at him the man gives him a look so intense it makes his heart skip a beat. “If you can’t discern its meaning, you will never solve your puzzle.”

The door led him to a narrow staircase, probably meant for the servants to use, and at the bottom of it he found Moon Taeil, stirring slowly in a small cauldron, surrounded by heaps upon heaps of potions ingredients, the most prominent being the glinting white mountain of South Sea pearls.

He looks around the room and finds it empty except for Moon Taeil so he slinks inside, keeping to the wall as he inches around the room on silent feet so he comes upon Moon Taeil from behind. 

“What are you making?” he asks and Moon Taeil startles like a high-strung cat though his hand remains steady, stirring the potion three times clockwise and three times counter-clockwise. He curses under his breath in korean and the familiar words have a smile tugging at Doyoung’s mouth.

“How in the blazes are you here?” Moon Taeil whisper-shouts and Doyoung can see him warming up to a ramble and he really doesn’t have time for that.

“What are you making? I know you’re the  _ Moonshiner _ , now what are you doing here?” If he had his wand it would be pressed against the soft space under Moon Taeil’s jaw, but he settles for gripping his collar and staring him down. His stare is his most effective weapon in interrogations after all.

Moon Taeil stutters, fumbling so much in Doyoung’s grip he tips over the cauldron and all its contents spill onto the floor. Much like Moon Taeil had done with him earlier, Doyoung drags him away from the mess with enough force he would have fallen if not for Doyoung’s firm grip on his clothes. 

“It was just a bit of fun!” Moon Taeil shouts and Doyoung curses. With all the noise they’re making someone is bound to come running. “It’s a drug, a narcotic, meant for fun but they’ve soiled it! I didn’t mean for it to kill  _ anyone _ !”

The door to the kitchen flies open with a bang, causing several glass vials to fall from the shelves on the wall and shatter on the floor. Through comes no less than three thugs, all dressed similarly in green army jackets with a black band around their forearms that Doyoung now sees is indeed shaped like a broken infinity symbol—one circle is whole but the other stops in only a half-moon shape. 

That’s all the time he’s allowed as Moon Taeil grips his shoulders firmly and shakes him.

“Please, find my husband, help him!” A flash of green light zips between them and Moon Taeil shoves him towards a different door while he goes to the soiled mess of glistening potion on the floor, scooping it up in his hands. It instantly makes his skin boil and melt, but he doesn’t seem to care as he throws it at the three men crowding through the door. They fall back, screaming in agony as the unfinished potion burns through their skin.

“Please his name is Ten, you have to-” is the last thing Taeil says as a flash of green hits him in the back and his life is taken in an instant.

Before Taeil’s body hits the floor, Doyoung is out the door, feeling the cold winter wind hitting his face as he runs into the overgrown garden, running a zigzagging path to avoid the curses flying at him. 

What Taeil had said about wolves is completely gone from his mind until he hears them howling at the moon and only then does he realise the curses are fizzling out before they even reach him. His attackers haven’t followed him onto the grounds. 

He slows down, eyes flitting around himself in the dark and his heart is thrumming in his chest, pumping blood and adrenaline through his body as his fear spikes. More howling sounds in the distance and even closer is the rustle of tall grass and he knows even if he can’t see them that the wolves have him surrounded. He reaches out with his magic to apparate out of there, but is stopped by protective spells in the multitude. 

Just as the moon glints off a blood-red eye only two metres away from him, the sound of shouting comes from the house and then the heavy trample of feet on grass and the wolves all around him howl. He closes his eyes, accepting his fate and mourning the useless sacrifice Taeil made for him, but the clamp of teeth and scratching of claws and the promise of death never comes. Instead all he feels is the soft brush of fur against him as the wolves run past him, clearly deciding his pursuers are a much tastier prey. 

In the dark he can’t see anything of what happens next, but he hears the screams, the sound of limbs ripping and tendons tearing and the growl of several hungry, ferocious animals tearing the men to shreds. Not wanting to be next, he turns quickly on his heels intending to make a run for it and bumps right into a large wolf with one blood-red eye. Fear clogs his chest and all that comes out is a whimper and he swears his heart stops. The wolf blinks lazily at him with its one eye and makes a growling sound deep in its throat before jerking its head in the direction away from the house in a very reminiscent way. Doyoung can almost hear the silver-haired man’s voice in his head telling him to  _ run along then _ and the aura of magic that washes over him then is like a dark cloud, promising a downpour of blood.

The wolves are his, his  _ familiars _ , and they’re letting him go.

Certain he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome, Doyoung runs. He runs until he feels the haze of protection spells push around him and he comes out on the other side and then he focuses his magic and pictures his own bedroom in his mind and apparates. It doesn’t work, his magic without his wand too unpredictable for such a task and he only makes it as far as the hill overlooking the mansion. When he looks back, there is nothing there but an empty valley, and even though he knows the mansion is there the spells start to work—drawing his gaze away and giving him ideas of walking around the valley instead. He sees no sign of anyone pursuing him, neither man nor wolf, and so he takes a moment, breathing  _ in-two-three  _ and  _ out-two-three-four _ before drawing on his magic again. This time it works and when his feet land on wooden floorboards he takes only a second to look around his perfectly clean bedroom before he collapses into his bed. 


	9. Jaehyun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Lea, thank you again for your lovely comment, it really gave me the motivation to get this out this quickly<3
> 
> (fyi: there is a short display of homophobia in one of jaehyun's memories/visions)

The note is staring at him, he’s sure of it. Somehow over night it has grown eyes and is staring at him. Cartoonish eyes in the  _ ou _ and the question mark is a raised eyebrow.  _ Is this yours? _ He reads it again, and again and again until the words circle his mind on a constant loop. He had meant to attach it to the drawing he had found in the book and send it to Doyoung, but three days later and it’s still on his desk, held down by the corner of  _ Herbivores for your horticultural needs _ . He marvels at the coincidence that it would be that book as both it and the note are intrinsically linked to Doyoung. 

_ Flourish & Blotts was packed, filled to the brim with Hogwarts students and their families. Mark was there with his muggle parents, but they had seen each other just the day before so when their eyes met over the heads of a gaggle of third years they only shared a smile. He was with Doyoung anyway, his boyfriend. It was still new enough that he couldn’t seem to say Doyoung’s name without tacking on the epithet boyfriend.  _

_ The author of Herbivores for your horticultural needs—an american witch who went only by the initials M.M.—was having a book signing, but they were running late. An ice cream stop at Florean Fortescue and a makeout stop in the alley behind it had made sure they arrived just as Madame M was accepting applause from her avid herbologist following, but it was hard to be mad when Doyoung was still sucking on his bright pink ice cream spoon and the memory of his cold lips on his was still so fresh.  _

_ “I’m sorry sweetheart,” Doyoung said, combing a soothing hand through his hair. He always did that; protecting and caring seemed like second nature to Doyoung, and Jaehyun liked it. _

_ “It’s alright, it’s just a signature,” he said even though he was clutching the book to his chest like something precious. And it was; his father had given it to him. Right before he left.  _

_ “Here, let me see that,” Doyoung said and pulled the book from his arms, turning to throw it open in the window sill behind them. He pulled a feather quill from his purse and tapped it so the ink bled into the tip before hunching over the book and scribbling something down. _

_ “There, a signature,” he said proudly once he had finished, holding the book up in front of his chest.  _

** _To Jaehyun (My Love) I look forward to waiting hours in line to get your signature _ ** ♥ 

** _Yours always, Doyoung_ **

He reads it again now as the memory fades; traces the letters over and over with care, following Doyoung’s swirly penmanship with fondness. 

The visions come with more frequency these days; creeping unexpectedly upon him and leaving him with an annoying headache pulsing behind his brow. He hasn’t had visions like this since he was a child and they presented themselves in hellish nightmares instead of daydreams of his ex like they do now. He knows which he prefers. 

Massaging his forehead with his fingers, he walks from his desk and over to a pale green door and opens it carefully so as not to let in too much light as he slips through. The small cubicle-sized room is entirely dark, but he knows its interior by heart. Directly opposite the door the wall is covered from floor to ceiling with bunches of dried flowers—geranium, baby’s breath, hydrangea and astilbe to name a few—on the left wall is a similar assortment of herbs, suspended upside down from hooks in the shiplap, slowly drying. The remaining wall holds a mixture of it all, chopped and sealed in glass vials stored in a small cabinet.

“Accio catnip,” he whispers, pointing his wand at the cabinet and immediately a vial comes flying from its designated spot on the shelves and into his hand. He slips back out the door, closing it quietly behind himself. 

Once back at his desk he dumps a good amount of the catnip into his mug and taps it with his wand, transfixed as it slowly fills with hot water. Normally he would add a teaspoon of honey or maybe some lemon zest to mask the woody taste, but with the pounding in his head growing more intense he swallows it down as it is. 

As he puts his mug down, the fireplace behind him roars to life and Johnny’s face takes shape in the green flames. 

“Hey babe,” he says cheerfully when Jaehyun kneels in front of the hearth and gives him a soft, strained smile. He wonders if Johnny notices. 

“Are you alright? You look tired,” Johnny frowns in concern. So he did notice, though Jaehyun doubts he thinks it’s about him. 

“Headache,” he says quietly, still rubbing a finger over his right brow. Johnny’s flamy visage pouts at him and he can hear the whine working its way into his voice even before Johnny says anything.

“Poor baby, do you want me to pop over, make you some soup, take care of you? Or maybe you want to come here? Get out of the castle for a while?”

Did he like Johnny more the last time they were together, or did he simply put up with his quirks because he fucked him so good? He mulls the thought over in his mind long enough for Johnny to grow impatient.

“Babe?” he prods and leans closer in the flames, as if he wants to crawl right out of them and into Jaehyun’s lap. “Did you want me to come over?”

“I wa…” he tries, but he starts talking before he even knows what he wants to say and the uncertainty only makes his stutter worse.

“What do you want? My fireplace is open if you want to come over, just step on through. Is that what you want?” 

He grows silent as Johnny bulldozes on, trying to guess his mind when he fails to understand his words just like he has always done. He tried telling Johnny once that he needs to be more patient, but it never really stuck. Being too tired to argue, Jaehyun smiles and nods and hums in agreement and only sighs his frustration to himself once Johnny pulls out of the flames, leaving the fireplace empty. 

As he steps inside the hearth and calls out  _ The Leaky Cauldron Room 7 _ he only hopes he can use the pity card to get Johnny to fuck him all slow the way he likes it. 

Is it cheating? he asks himself as he sends the note and the drawing off with Johnny’s owl. Is it cheating that he likes the idea of having Doyoung’s mark on his body? It’s not as if he has even seen Doyoung since he and Johnny got back together; he hasn’t heard a peep from the man since he left quietly in the middle of the night after they’d spent hours fucking each other. 

He looks back at Johnny asleep in his bed and appreciates the wide expanse of muscled chest under bronzed skin that he is more than allowed to touch. He used to look like that—not nearly as big but the definition was the same—and he worried at first that Johnny wouldn't find him attractive anymore. Not so much because he looked different, but because he didn’t care enough to keep himself in shape. 

Johnny hadn’t said anything, but that doesn’t mean much. Jaehyun is pretty sure he gives the man enough things to worry about. Like how he has barely said a word since he walked through the fireplace, for example. But Johnny rattled him earlier and it’s easier to lose himself in sex than to attempt conversation when he’s so uncomfortable. 

He leans out the window and watches the pale Barn Owl disappear over the roofs and out of the lights from street lamps and headlights and living room windows and wonders where it’s going. Doyoung lives in London—that much he knows—but if he lives to the south or the east or right in the middle of Oxford Street he has no idea. He wouldn't be surprised to find out he lives right next door to the Queen; it just sounds like Doyoung. Besides, it’s close to the Ministry and Doyoung have always enjoyed his morning walks—Doyoung used to walk him to his first class of the day every day once they started dating, just so he could get a few more steps in.

“Jaehyun?” Johnny’s groggy voice pulls him away from the window and back into bed and he only realises how cold he is once Johnny points it out. “Why were you hanging out the window like that? It’s freezing,” he says and wraps him up tightly in his arms without a care about Jaehyun’s chilled body making him cold.

“I borrowed your owl,” he mumbles against Johnny’s collarbone, the prepared sentence coming out without a hitch. 

“That’s okay baby. Wanna tell me what you needed it for?” Johnny asks, stroking his hair and kissing the side of his face and Jaehyun gets the feeling Johnny would accept it if he chose not to tell him. But he follows his instincts instead and, once again, he lies.

“Telling my m...mom about you.”

“Really? Well I’ll have you know that’s exactly what it’s for-”

_ “That’s exactly what it’s for, right lads?” The guy couldn’t have been more than a fourth year; his face was a patchwork of pimples and his height was far below average but that didn’t stop him from being a conceited prick. “Put yer wand down before you hurt anyone, or better yet, shove it up yer bunghole. Ye like that don’t ye, fookin fag.” _

“Jaehyun?! Jaehyun!” Johnny’s voice tears him out of the memory, cutting the vision short with a jarring effect. His head swims and his chest aches when he tries to take a breath and the sudden nausea makes him seize up just to avoid barfing all over Johnny’s chest. 

“Are you okay? Your eyes rolled up and you went all quiet!” Johnny is still holding him tightly, but his grip feels more frantic than the soothing touch it was before. The nausea isn’t going away so he struggles against Johnny’s hold until it loosens and stumbles his way to the ensuite just in time. Johnny must have been hot on his heels because he’s right there, holding his hair back and stroking his back as he heaves stomach acid and water into the toilet bowl. He has never reacted so physically to a vision before, not that he remembers at least. The fear when he was a child and accosted by vivid nightmares night after night was one thing, but it was all in his mind. Maybe it was Johnny, maybe it was the contents of the vision, maybe it was something else. It’s not a nice memory; only once in his life has he been met with such blatant homophobia and he wasn’t very surprised to learn the boy was a muggleborn. But he has a feeling that’s not what his mind was trying to show him.

Doyoung had been there—angrier than he had ever seen him before—and the fourth year had found himself dangling upside down in the middle of the air before he could even take a breath. He always knew Doyoung was good with words, but the amount of colourful insults he hurled at the boy surprised even him, though not as much as the silent curse Doyoung sent with a wave of his hand, causing spiders to crawl from the boy’s ears and mouth and nostrils. 

Doyoung is a Pureblood and pure blood and dark magic have always walked hand in hand, but Doyoung never liked using it. Jaehyun knows because they talked about it the first, and only, night he spent in Doyoung’s childhood home. But Doyoung also had a protective streak a mile wide and a habit of justifying his means with the end result and he was satisfied with a month's detention because he had been there for Jaehyun.

It was the first time he saw exactly what Doyoung was capable of, but while his housemates tried to warn him away it never bothered Jaehyun. He knew Doyoung was good at his core.

All his visions these last five months have been about Doyoung so it only makes sense that this one was meant to be about him as well. 

“Are you okay?” Johnny whispers into his ear, still stroking his back. The nausea has passed with the minimal contents of his stomach and now he just feels exhausted, both mentally and physically. But he doesn’t think he can go back to sleep. 

With Johnny’s help he washes his face and brushes his teeth and then he leans against the wash basin with a shaky exhale. Johnny cards his fingers through his bangs, pushing them away from his damp forehead, but otherwise keeps his distance, giving him the space to breathe. 

“You wanna tell me what that was about?” he whispers, but accepts it when Jaehyun shakes his head. He has never told anyone about his visions—as they had stopped by the time he started school he saw no point in it. Now it feels too fragile, too personal to share. But he really thinks he should talk to someone about them as he has no clue where to begin interpreting them. 

“Cassandra,” he mumbles, the name springing to mind in a brief moment of clarity. His father used to talk about a woman with the sight who worked out of a parlour in Diagon Alley. Her name was Cassandra. His father had wanted to take him to her when he was a child, but his mother always refused.

“I ha-ave to go,” he fumbles past Johnny, his body moving sluggishly on shaky legs, and it’s no surprise when Johnny easily catches him in his arms. 

“You’re in no condition to go anywhere,” Johnny says sternly and lifts him off his feet and carries him to the bed. He tries to struggle, but it’s no use; his body is too weak and the softness of the bed is too inviting. 

“Sleep for now, okay? And in the morning I’ll take you wherever it is you need to go.”

He wakes up pressed against Johnny’s back, his face hidden in the soft cotton of his t-shirt. Despite how tactile Johnny is, he has never been one to cuddle through the night; unlike Jaehyun who can’t sleep without something to wrap his arms around. He feels a lot better as he rolls out of bed and walks on quiet tiptoes to the bathroom; Johnny was right about waiting until morning, but now he feels an even stronger urge to see this  _ Cassandra _ person as quickly as possible. 

After washing up he sneaks back into the bedroom, intending to get dressed and leave before Johnny wakes up. He doesn’t get that far. Johnny is already awake and is closing the window after letting in his owl when Jaehyun steps back into the room. Feeling like his stomach has dropped to his feet, he looks quickly around at the owl and Johnny’s hands and the writing desk between them, but there is no letter, or note or anything. The owl has come back empty-handed. 

“No reply, should I take that as a bad sign?” Johnny laughs nervously and it takes Jaehyun a moment to understand what he’s talking about, but then he laughs as well.

“N-no, she’s no-not very g-good at replying,” he says softly, trying not to cringe. Liar, liar, pants on fire. At least he’s getting better at it. He pulls on his trousers and discards the t-shirt he had borrowed from Johnny for the long-sleeved sweater he was wearing the day before, all the while Johnny watches him silently from the window-sill.

“Were you planning on leaving without me?” he says eventually, but his tone is teasing instead of disgruntled. “Where did you need to go?” he asks, taking Jaehyun’s hand in his.

“I get that you don’t want me to know, but at least let me take you wherever it is you need to go. It doesn’t feel right letting you go off on your own after last night.”

He wants to say that what happened last night wouldn't have happened if it weren’t for Johnny, but even as he thinks it he’s not so sure that’s true. Something about last night’s vision had felt different. It had an intensity he has never experienced before, as if his prophetic eye was desperate to tell him something important. But what that might be, he has no idea. 

“Cassandra. Sh...she’s in Diagon Alley,” he blurts, caught off guard by his own impromptu decision. “I-I don’t know where.”

Johnny nods slowly and starts pulling on his clothes, keeping his eyes on Jaehyun as if he worries he’ll bolt the second he looks away. It’s not impossible.

“We’ll ask around, someone in the bar should know,” he pulls on a knitted cardigan that Jaehyun feels an inexplicable urge to burrow into. “Wait for me okay? I’ll be out in a bit.”

Johnny disappears into the ensuite and Jaehyun falls on his back on the bed and sighs loudly at the curtained canopy. He might hate being made to share himself in this way, but he can’t deny that it feels good to have someone care for him. 

When he was with Johnny in Southern Europe their circumstances were different; they were constantly on the move and were both far away from home, living in a bubble where little else mattered except the here and now. Now Jaehyun has gone back to reality—to his sick mom and his failing relationships and mediocre life—and Johnny is here, still living on the go just like they used to. It makes him feel vulnerable to invite Johnny into his life like this while he’s not afforded the same privilege. 

“Good, you’re still here,” Johnny says as he comes out of the bathroom, looking clean and fresh and more handsome than should be possible. He bends over the bed to kiss him and Jaehyun wonders for a split second if he could lure Johnny into fucking him again and then sneak out once he’d fallen asleep, but before he can give it serious thought he is pulled to his feet and out the door with barely enough time to put on his shoes. 

“We’ll ask at the bar first, if they don’t know then we can try Florean. Those girls know anything and everything,” Johnny laughs and helps Jaehyun into his jacket and somehow still manages to walk down the stairs without tripping over his feet at the same time. 

Five minutes later and he’s glad to have Johnny at his side as they stand in front of an orange and yellow door set with a tiny square window of frosted glass and the words  _ Madam C’s Oracle _ painted underneath.

If he had been on his own he would probably still have been wandering the Alley looking for this place, but Johnny had gotten directions from the girls working at Florean Fortescue’s ice cream parlour that led them right to this door. 

“A brightly coloured door at the corner to Knockturn Alley, behind the burnt almonds vendor,” Johnny parrots the giggly teenaged girl from the ice cream parlour and points victoriously at said colourful door. 

“Do you want me to wait out here?” he asks, rubbing his thumb over the back of Jaehyun’s hand that he never once let go off since leaving the Leaky Cauldron. Jaehyun can only nod, overwhelmed by a sudden bout of nerves as he stands frozen to the cobbled street and reads the words  _ Madam C’s Oracle _ over and over in his head. He vaguely feels Johnny press a kiss to his cheek and the touch spurs him on. He turns the door knob and pushes the gritty yellow and orange door open and steps inside, allowing it to fall shut behind him with a creak and a thud. Past the door is nothing but a narrow staircase; just another obstacle for him to overcome in what is proving to be a tougher challenge than he anticipated. 

He finds himself wishing his dad was with him; twenty-four-years-old and he suddenly needs his father to hold his hand. It’s only made more pathetic by the fact that he hasn’t wanted to even think about his dad in years, and before the letter he got just before Yuletide he hadn’t thought about the man in years either. His dad was always travelling so not having him around was something he got used to as a child, but travelling the world and bringing back souvenirs and exotic plants for him to play with, and leaving them in the dust for a new family are two things that could never be compared. But he’s still his dad, and Jaehyun needs him now more than ever. 

He realises he has lingered far too long only when he suddenly finds himself surrounded by fog and the haunting sound of wind chimes—bamboo, glass and metal mingling seamlessly together—floats down the stairs and wraps around him, pulling him along as if the sound alone was a sentient being. He clings to the railing so as not to fall as the magic of the fog and music pulls him up the stairs.

“The little duckling arrives,” a female voice says from somewhere outside of the fog, and another voice echoes it a moment later.

“We’ve been waiting,” “Waiting.”

“Come, know your future,” “Your future.”

“And your fears will subside,” They will subside.”

“Give me your … wait, Yuri, turn it off.” The leading voice changes pitch all of a sudden, losing all the theatrics and mystery and a second later the fog disappears as if sucked back into a container. When it’s gone he can finally see the room; the dark wood panelling and auburn draperies and frilly, silk pillows strewn over the floor in comfortable-looking seating areas. The two women are standing to either side of him, no more than a meter away and he takes several steps back in surprise and knocks his head against at least three wind chimes hanging from the ceiling. 

“Yuri, it’s him,” the blonde woman to his left says and the ominous statement sends shivers down Jaehyun’s back. “Number two-fifty-seven,” she says to her companion who disappears behind a heavy curtain without a word. Well now he’s just confused.

“You kn...you know me?” he asks, wringing his hands together. 

“Nope,” the woman says, looking him up and down while tapping a feather against her arm. Her blonde hair is pulled up in a messy bun at the back of her head and pulled through with several more feathers of varying shades of red and purple. With the soft crows feet in the corners of her eyes she looks exactly how he imagined a fortune teller would look like.

“A-are you Ca-cassandra then?” he asks, for once feeling the need to fill a silence. She smiles then; apparently he said something amusing.

“Yeah, but that’s for white people’s sake. You can call me Hyoyeon.”

The other woman, Yuri he thinks, comes back then, holding a small, round glass ball in one hand and a book under her other arm. She hands the glass ball to Hyoyeon and opens the heavy tome, flipping pages until she finds the right one.

“Number two-hundred-and-fifty-seven,” she reads, running her finger over the page. “Jung Jaehyun, age 5, halfblood. Visions appear as nightmares, vague and indescribable.” 

He wonders how they could possibly have this kind of information on him, but realisation hits him a heartbeat later. His father, of course. He must have gone against his mother’s wishes and sought out the Seer without them knowing, hoping to help Jaehyun.

“This is all the information your father was able to give us, but while your nightmares may have been vague I doubt they were indescribable,” Hyoyeon says and gestures to one of the seating areas. He accepts the invite with a small bow, making himself comfortable on one of the large silk pillows while the two women sit down opposite him.

“This is Yuri, my wife and partner, now everyone has been introduced.” Hyoyeon briefly rubs her hand over Yuri’s knee before leaning into the circle to place the glass ball on a golden, serpentine stand. He notices for the first time the swirling mist inside and before he can think about it blurts, “that’s a prophecy.”

“Yes, one of my own. Not every child we document warrants a prophecy of their own, but for some reason you did.” 

He doesn’t know what to think of that. What’s so special about him that there’s a whole prophecy about him? The uncertainty quickly gives way to fear however, and he feels a chill set in his very bones and crawl over his skin as he stares into the swirling mist inside the glass ball. Prophecies are never good, that much he knows. They only spell trouble for the people involved and he has enough on his plate right now.

“You should hear it,” Hyoyeon says softly, a hand open in front of her as if offering the glass ball to him. He shakes his head at once, he doesn’t want to hear it.

“N-no,” he whispers and turns away, embarrassed of the tears welling in his eyes. This is not what he wanted. He wanted answers for Merlin’s sake! Not more questions, not more problems!

“It might help you interpret your dreams, make them known. Once something is known it loses its power over your fear.”

He wants to run— wants to tell her he doesn’t even remember his nightmares, wants to crush the glass ball and blow away the prophetic mist and erase any evidence that it ever existed—but he knows that would amount to nothing. If a prophecy truly has been made for him then there is no escaping it. His fate is sealed, but perhaps everyone else is just as tied as he is and he is the fortunate one who has been afforded a guide.

His mind made up, he reaches for the glass ball and holds it up to his face. He’s not sure what to look for, but the mist keeps swirling, unbothered by his piercing stare. Then he hears it. A sound like a hiss growing louder and louder, taking on the cadence of Hyoyeon’s voice as it eventually forms words.

“ _ Lost of heart and torn asunder _

_ Wings are clipped by ebony horn _

_ The circle made or buckle under _

_ Let love by death for once be shorn _ ”

The ball drops into his lap but he quickly picks it back up and lets the words of the prophecy float through his mind until they have created their own niche in his memory, forever seared into it. It’s not entirely obscure. Lost of heart is a state he always dreads but knows eventually will come. It’s about his mom.

Other parts are harder to interpret. He has no idea what circle must be made and he feels the overwhelming fear of failure settle in his gut as if it has no intention of leaving. He doesn’t even want to  _ think _ about the last line.

“Will you tell me about your dreams?” Hyoyeon’s quiet voice breaks through his thoughts. Yuri is holding out a box of tissues and he takes one gratefully when he realises his face is wet with tears. Somehow, he doesn’t feel embarrassed about them anymore.

“We document the prophetic dreams of children,” Hyoyeon continues when he’s not forthcoming. “Only a rare few actually have the sight, but a child’s mind is open to the teachings of the universe though they are rarely equipped to understand them. You’re not the first to come here as an adult, seeking answers to questions made in your childhood.”

“But it’s not, I-I mean. It’s not j...just my-my childhood.” Hyoyeon studies him closely and he feels self-conscious under her gaze. She takes his hands in hers and breathes deeply a couple times with her eyes closed before letting go.

“You don’t have the sight,” she says slowly, as if she is trying to make sense of him. “For the prophetic dreams to penetrate, an open mind is necessary and adults just don’t have the right mindset for it.”

“I smoke a lot of weed,” he mumbles, mostly to himself but Hyoyeon hums as if it gave meaning to everything she knew.

“That would do it,” she says with a laugh. “And are the dreams the same as when you were a child?”

He shakes his head, curling in on himself and clutching the glass ball in his lap. He feels small—vulnerable in a way he hasn’t been since he was a child—as the nightmares start creeping back to the forefront of his mind. He never forgot them, but they have been safely stored in the darkest recesses of his mind for the last fifteen years. 

“Will you tell me?”

“Can I w-write them d-down?” he asks quietly, certain he won’t be able to talk about them in a way Hyoyeon and Yuri will understand. Yuri is on her feet in an instant, slipping behind another set of curtains and returning with a roll of papyrus and a feather quill.

“It’s enchanted papyrus,” she says softly as she hands both items to him. “What you write on it will only stay as long as you wills it to.”

She has the face of a mother, he thinks. Soft and kind and caring.

He crosses his legs in front of him and rolls the papyrus over his thigh as a writing surface and shakes the quill so that the ink seeps into its tip, and then he writes.

_ I’m standing in the middle of a tornado, except it’s not wind but brown, muddy water. I can’t move and I can’t breath.  _

He turns the papyrus so they can read. It’s not much, but the dreams were never all that elaborate. The horrifying part of it was that they never stopped. He would stand in that water tornado for hours and hours until he either woke himself up screaming or his parents shook him awake.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles when the words fade from the page after a mere few seconds. Recalling that particular dream was too painful.

“It’s alright,” Hyoyeon says and tilts her head in thought. “The inclusions of the elements suggests that this was about you personally. Water carries emotion and muddy water can mean great sadness. It could be a warning of personal hardships in your future.”

He thinks about his dad leaving and his mom getting sick and feels that Hyoyeon hit it right on the nail. It did feel like sadness—terrifying and overwhelming sadness.

_ I see a man in the middle of an empty street. It’s dark, and absolutely quiet. I can see the moon reflected in a puddle, except it’s red. There’s no movement in it, it’s almost like I’m looking at a still frame. _

The words stay on the papyrus a lot longer this time; he doesn’t have too many bad memories regarding this one, though it has had the most tangible effect on his life. He looked for a blood red moon for years, browsing older and older texts for any mention of its significance until he finally found it in a large tome in the restricted section of the Hogwarts library. 

Blood magic.

He never told anyone—not Mark not Doyoung not anyone—because despite its horrifying history and dark  _ dark _ uses, Blood Magic intrigued him.

“A blood moon has been considered a lunar malevolence by many ancient civilisations … did you ever recognise the man? Could you make out a face?” Hyoyeon asks and he shakes his head immediately. It’s another lie, mostly. As a child he didn’t know the man, but remembering it now as an adult he sees the long, slim body and coiffed hair of one Kim Doyoung. The silver shine of a velvet suit and the sophisticated line of wingtip shoes is as if taken from the night they met again after eight years.

He knows it’s Doyoung, but the inescapable connection of Doyoung and his dream and Blood Magic forces him to keep his mouth shut. He can’t know what Hyoyeon and Yuri would do with that kind of knowledge, and Blood Magic has been outlawed in Britain and the continent since the 1600s.

“It might be a warning. In ancient Mesopotamia the blood moon was considered an assault on the king. In your case, the man you saw could be a threat to you or someone close to you, or he could be the one in danger.”

Jaehyun sighs, chewing on his bottom lip as he considers the feather quill in his hand. Hyoyeon isn’t saying everything, he’s certain of it. If he could make the connection at fifteen then surely she must have too. 

“I’m being vague I know,” Hyoyeon says, reading his mind. “Divination is rarely a straightforward craft and I can only guide you. You are the only one who can truly understand the visions afforded to you.”

His silence lasts longer than he cares to know, long enough for the ink in the quill tip to dry out. In the end Hyoyeon is the one who breaks the silence.

“Your dreams now—how are they different?” she asks, hands folded in her lap with the utmost patience. She looks like a head doctor—or a therapist as the muggles call it—all calm and poise and genuine interest.

“Th-they’re not dreams, exactly. M-more like m...memories. Of my ex.”

Hyoyeon shares a look with Yuri before her eyes fall briefly to the now blank papyrus in Jaehyun’s lap and he wonders if she’s made the connection herself. But all she does is smile and as if she can sense that he is two seconds from bolting says with finality, “maybe you’re due for a reconnection.”

It’s raining when he steps outside, a heavy downpour that fills the street with water in an instant and drowns out all the voices even in his own head. Jaehyun basks in it for a moment—letting the rain wash away the tension from his shoulders and the lingering smoky scent of prophecies and pain—before he finds himself shielded from the torrents under a magical umbrella and the warmth of Johnny’s body. 

“How’d it go?” Johnny asks, his mouth pressed against Jaehyun’s ear and his hand resting lightly on his waist. It’s unassuming, for once he doesn’t push and Jaehyun is glad for it as he makes an involuntary jerky move with his head that isn’t any kind of answer.

“Let’s go get some breakfast then,” Johnny says and guides him down the street, and Jaehyun goes willingly—all too happy to be led around when even just thinking makes his brain hurt. 

He certainly got  _ some _ answers, but as he could have foreseen he got more questions as well, and he hadn’t even told Hyoyeon about all of his dreams. But he doubts it would make much difference, with the kind of answers she gave him he might as well invest in a book;  _ Interpreting dreams _ or  _ Divination for dummies _ . One thing he knows for sure, he  _ needs _ to talk to Doyoung. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/donscity)


	10. Doyoung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joyri makes a comeback, finally  
I ended up having to cut so many things from this chapter because I had so much fun writing about these three

He has the mother of all headaches; pounding away inside his skull as if someone is repeatedly stabbing him between the eyes while hitting him over the head with a club at the same time. He can barely move from the pain, but somehow he makes it to the bathroom before throwing up. He feels marginally better once the—in hindsight positively ghastly—prison food is out of his system, and he debates the pros and cons of staying right there with his overheated cheek pressed to the cool porcelain until his aching head stops aching. Or falls off, whichever comes first. 

He knows he shouldn’t use so much wandless magic—it never ends well for him—but he didn’t have much of a choice. It was do or die, and he very much prefers  _ not _ to die. Always. 

“Fuck,” he groans when he thinks of his wand, still lost in the hands of those brainless thugs. His beautiful wand—vine, eleven inches with a dragon heartstring core. He groans again when he realises he’s going to have to get a new one; it wasn’t an exactly pleasant experience when he did it the first time at eleven years old. Maybe he’ll bring Yeri along to act as a mediator. Or not, she would just bring Joy and that would end up double the trouble for the pureblood-fearing wandmaker, completely cancelling out Yeri’s muggleborn magic.

Is there a name for wizards who hate purebloods? Probably just wizards.

As his head starts to clear, he crawls across the tiled floor—utterly grateful no one is there to witness him in his least graceful moment as he stretches for the knob to turn on the showerhead. He turns his face to the spray; uncaring that his clothes are getting wet as the cold water soothes his aching head even more. 

“Kip!” he yells and a second later, with a sucking  _ pop _ , his main house elf appears in front of him, wringing his three-fingered hands in his pillowcase toga. “Get me the spare wand from storage.”

“Yes Master,” Kip quips and disappears in the same instantaneous manner he arrived. The house elf doesn’t return, but a handful of seconds later a pale brown wand lands in Doyoung’s lap. It’s Donghyun’s wand; they took it from him when he was admitted the first time and Doyoung was supposed to turn it in but kept it instead. Maybe he hoped Donghyun would be able to use it again, or maybe he just knew he would one day end up in the kind of situation where he would need it. 

It doesn’t feel right in his hand—despite being brothers he and Donghyun are like fire and water—but it does the trick. Hopefully after a long, hot shower he’ll start feeling like a real human being again.

Finally clean and dressed in his favourite dark lilac velvet suit, he apparates to an alley not far from Yeri’s apartment building in Kensington. This is only his second visit to Yeri’s new apartment—the first time being a moving-in party that got maybe a little wild, he doesn’t exactly remember much—and he is just as stunned this time by the clean streets stretching in front of him. It’s not something he’s used to seeing in the city. 

Balancing two takeaway cups of coffee in one hand, he takes a sip of his own as he ascends the stairs and pulls on the owl-shaped knocker on Yeri’s green front door. 

He doesn’t have to wait long and when the door swings inwards with a flourish—even doors acquire the ability to flourish in the hands of his best friend—it’s Joy’s surprised face that greets him.

“Peace offering?” He smiles and holds up his balancing tower of hazelnut lattes to Joy who does nothing but stare at him for several long, excruciating moments. Just as he is starting to think she’ll close the door in his face and leave it at that, Joy instead takes the coffees from his hands—all three of them—and places them carefully on the hallway sideboard before throwing her arms around his neck.

“You stupid idiot, where the hell have you been?! You think you can just ignore me like that? It’s been months you bloody wanker!” she yells at him, her face hidden in his shoulder so words that would have been loud enough to be heard up and down the street are muffled for his ears only. He tries not to laugh at her, he really does, but he can’t help it when she simultaneously hits his back with a curled fist and bursts into tears. 

“I’ve missed you too, Sooyoungie,” he coos and strokes a hand over her cascading hair. She hits him painfully in the shoulder before turning away to dab at her eyes before she points inside with a grunt and disappears down the long, narrow entryway. He follows after her, scooping up their coffees and takes the time to look around on the way to the kitchen at the end of the hall. The inside is all white walls and walnut flooring, open french doors with gossamer curtains and curvaceous details bordering the ceiling. It’s pretty in a delicate way and it reminds him of Yeri. 

“Did I hear Doyoung?” He hears Yeri’s loud voice through the walls and soon after she comes tap-tap-tapping down the hall in her fluffy, orange slippers. 

“You made my girlfriend cry, you know,” she says in a light-hearted way that is completely off-set by the hard punch she lands on his arm. She must’ve cursed him out enough over the months since they last saw each other.

“I will make it up to her,” he promises, laughing even though it’s not in any way a joke. “Starting with a nice latte? Hazelnut?” He holds up his offerings and Yeri takes them from him with an almost manic grin and spins on her toes to tap-tap-tap back down the hall without another word. 

The kitchen is just as he remembered it, except cleaner. Pale pink tiles on the floor and white walls with silver lines like branches stretching to the ceiling, carrying shelves of pots and pans and dishes and utensils. There is still a lot of empty space around—space to grow into a forever home. It’s just what he wants for them. 

Joy and Yeri are already sitting on the dining table in the middle of the spacious room, sipping their lattes and looking at him with pointed gazes. He takes his jacket off before joining them—hanging it over the back of a chair and adjusting his tie. Once seated, he rests his hands palms up on the table for Joy and she doesn’t hesitate to rest her hands in his. 

“I am so sorry Sooyoung,” he starts, “for how I reacted to it all; for avoiding you all these months; for not being there for you when I should have. And I’m sorry it didn’t work out how we wanted it to—to both of you,” he turns to Yeri and she offers him a pinched smile. He knows it’s not what she wanted of course; she would marry Joy in a heartbeat if given her way. 

She leans over and kisses his cheek—a rare but not unusual show of affection—and lays her hand over his and Joy’s tangled on the polished tabletop. 

“Why did he say no anyway? I thought you were a  _ perfect match _ .” She crooks her fingers in the air and suddenly he is accosted by two intense and unrelenting stares as Joy’s hands tighten around his. 

“I don’t know,” he says, lifting his shoulders to his ears before letting them fall with a great sigh. “He just said no. Wouldn't hear it when I tried to convince him and then mother wouldn't even let me talk to him; said I had to  _ let him rest _ . If father knew she was talking about him like that he would blow a fuse.”

Joy leans back in her chair and drinks long from her coffee and when she puts it down with a papered thud the look on her face is a fine mix of sour and exaggerated amusement. 

“It’s good to know what he thinks of me, at least,” she says, but no one laughs. He doesn’t think that’s the case however; his father always adored Joy, but for whatever reason, he doesn’t want them to marry.

“Mother was being odd about it, actually. She kept asking if we were together and whether I loved you or not. I told her I do love you, but not like that.”

His mother’s face that day in the kitchen has never really left his mind; how she looked drawn and a little nauseous and a little sad. 

“She must have been happy you wanted to marry a woman,” Yeri says, but again no one laughs. Making jokes out of things no one laughs about is a skill they’ve perfected together. 

“Enough about that,” Joy says after a lengthy silence, waving her hands in the air as if to usher away any bad thoughts. “What happened to you? You look like you died and then dug yourself out of your own grave.”

Always trust Joy to paint a morbid picture. He snorts a laugh and runs a hand over his face; he knows he doesn’t look his best with the dark circles under his eyes and the pallid shade of his skin.

“Work.” He shakes his head and drinks his coffee and that’s that. They both know not to question him about work and right now he’s grateful for it. The last thing he wants is both of them worrying over him if they knew he had spent the last few days in captivity. 

“Do you have plans today?” he asks, “I need a new wand.”

The wince that crosses Joy’s face is unintentional, a subconscious reaction to a bad memory. “We’re coming with you,” she says, gathering her hair over one shoulder and running her fingers through it. It’s a nervous habit of hers and he hates that she feels just as unsettled about seeing the bitter, wizened wandmaker as he does. Neither of them have stepped foot in Ollivander’s since they were eleven, and for good reason. While they may still have privilege in most places due to their status, the utter disdain and borderline abuse they faced that day fourteen years ago was brutal enough to leave a mark.

“You’ve told me about it, but was it really that bad?” Yeri asks, subdued. She reaches for her girlfriend and runs her own fingers through Joy’s hair. They make a pretty picture and it makes him long for Jaehyun; makes him wish for the man’s presence next to him so he could run his fingers through his thick, silky hair. With all that’s happened he’s completely forgotten to tell his friends about what happened between them and he feels a burning need surge in him for their advice.

“Imagine you’re an eleven year old kid who has been looking forward to  _ finally _ getting your wand and then what you’re met with is a towering middle-aged man spouting obscenities and abuse at you just for carrying the name of a pureblood family.” Joy sums it up in one breath and Yeri nods solemnly. He doubts she has to use much imagination; after all, she grew up in a predominantly white, aristocratic society. 

“I was going to ask Yeri to come along; you don’t have to,” he says and leans back with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“So that’s the real reason you came all this way. I’m wounded,” Joy snaps her fingers at him and it’s another joke but still no one laughs. He wonders if it’s his presence that pulls them down or if they weren’t in a laughing mood even before he arrived. He very much doubts it’s the latter.

“You know you’re my best girl,” he says with a crooked smile and vanishes their empty to-go cups with a wave of his hand. It sends a spark through his still aching head that he can’t conceal, and the two women are on him in an instant. Joy lays her hand over his forehead and Yeri wraps her fingers around his wrist, checking his pulse before she sticks two fingers down the collar of his shirt.

“Morgana’s saggy tits, I’m alright!” he exclaims, pushing the both of them away with a bruskness neither of them deserves. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles and pinches his forehead between his thumb and middle finger. “It’s just a headache. I lost my wand on my last mission and had to use a lot of wandless magic to even get myself home.”

Yeri wordlessly waves her wand in the air and conjures a small, stoppered vial containing a translucent liquid. “Drink that and we’ll leave. After we get dressed,” she says as an afterthought and wraps her pink silk gown around herself. 

“Speak for yourself, I’m ready to go,” Joy says with a toss of her head. When he looks her over he honestly can’t tell if she’s joking or not as the glittering silk ensemble she’s wearing looks more like a nightgown than anything. Then she stands and a sheer lace skirt unfolds from her waist, and the spaghetti strap on her right shoulder grows into a full sleeve. It still looks more like something you’d see on a runway model rather than someone going to war in Ollivander’s wand shop. 

“Now for shoes,” Joy says and leaves the room with a flourish—throwing the curtains aside as she walks through the open doors. Doyoung and Yeri watch her go before turning to each other to share a silent laugh at her expense. They’re not stupid; Joy would hear them from the other end of the house  _ and _ up the stairs. 

“It’s really all or nothing with her isn’t it?” he chuckles and Yeri hums in response, a finger pressed to her lower lip. 

“Oh honey, it’s only nothing when we’re having sex,” she says with a dreamy glaze over her eyes until his snort of a laugh shakes her from her daydreaming and then she’s off as well—tousling his hair in retaliation before tap-tap-tapping her way down the hallway and up the stairs. 

Once he’s alone he does as instructed and swallows the potion all at once, sighing in pleasure as the cooling effect of the painkiller spreads through his body. Yeri always has the best stuff. He doesn’t try to vanish this one, but rather leaves it in the kitchen sink and makes his way to the guest bathroom across the hall. The pink tiles make their appearance here as well, but where the kitchen is bright with cold, silver accents, the bathroom is warmer with muted golds and jasmine white walls. It’s nice—the opposite of his own tastes—but nice.

After washing his face in one of the sinks and patting it dry, he makes a split-second decision and reaches for the pearl-shaped jar of Yeri’s homemade concealer. He dabs a finger in the pale blue cream and rubs it into his skin, stunned as the dark circles under his eyes completely disappear.

“You’re not supposed to be so rough under the eyes,” Joy says from the doorway, fully dressed in thigh-high emerald boots. “You  _ dab _ , carefully,” she swipes her finger through the concealer and dabs it carefully under her own eyes, all the while looking at him through the mirror.    
“Don’t think I don’t know you’re hiding something from me,” she says once she’s done, but she only pats his shoulder and leaves the room as quickly as she entered it. 

Yeri is waiting at the door—hair pulled up in a messy bun, wearing a casual outfit of jeans and a cotton sweater. She looks the complete opposite of her girlfriend, but in a complimentary way that Doyoung has yet to figure out how they do. 

“Ready to go?” she asks, holding a coat up for Joy to slip into.

“Ready to go,” he agrees and pulls his own jacket closed, fastening the buttons and adjusting his tie.

“Ready to go!” Joy thrills and throws the front door open with another flourish. 

Getting a new wand is a lot easier than he had anticipated. The old man is still surly, but he is quiet and only mumbles to himself as he picks wands from the shelves for Doyoung to try. In the end, his new wand is a beautifully carved thirteen inches rowan wood with a dragon heartstring core. Not quite the same as his old wand, but it feels good in his hand.

“That … went surprisingly well,” Joy says once they’re back on the cobbled street. 

“Not so surprising,” Yeri says and turns to Doyoung, poking him in the chest. “You can be very intimidating when you want to.”

He isn’t paying attention, however. Something caught his eye in the window of the pub across the street; a familiar face caught in another man’s embrace. Jaehyun is even more beautiful than he remembers; the smile on his face creates dimples in his cheeks no matter how small it is. Graceful fingers reach to tuck a lock of hair behind his companion’s ear and when Jaehyun leans in for a kiss, Doyoung’s heart stops. 

He expects to feel a lot of things—jealousy, anger, a burning need to punch the man who is allowed to claim what he wants for his own—but he only feels the bitter sadness of loss. 

He turns abruptly on his heel and strides down the street without looking back, ignoring the two girls as they call after him—”can’t we eat there?”, and “hey, isn’t that Jaehyun?” He only slows down when he is certain the pub with its treacherous window is far out of his sight.

Joy reaches him first and the concerned look in her eyes tells him she was the one who recognised his ex-boyfriend in the pub window. 

“Doyoung? Are you alright?” she asks, her voice quiet and soft as if she was talking to a spooked animal. He’s not surprised; it’s hard to compare the way he ran away from his breaking heart to anything else.

“Did I tell you I hooked up with Jaehyun?” He runs a hand through his hair, not caring when it ruins the perfect coif he so meticulously arranged it into. “Yeah, a couple weeks ago. I was at Hogwarts for work and we bumped into each other—you know, he’s the new Professor of Herbology, which only makes sense really, there’s no one better than him—and we got to talking then we fucked  _ several times _ and I watched him sleep.”

“Doyoung, you’re rambling!” Joy breaks in and he takes a deep, gasping breath and slumps into her arms. He knows he’s being pathetic and unlike earlier when he was crawling across his own bathroom floor, this humiliation is so public. He’s standing in the middle of Diagon Alley for Merlin’s sake! But even as he tells himself to pull it together, he can’t. His heart feels too heavy in his chest, weighing him down and making it hard to breathe. He knew his feelings for Jaehyun was reignited that night, but to be confronted with it so suddenly is too much to take.

“I can’t breathe,” he mumbles into Joy’s shoulder, knowing somewhere in the fog of his mind that that’s not true; he’s breathing fine but it feels like he’s choking.

“Take him home,” he vaguely hears Yeri’s voice says. “I’ll get us some seasoned galbi and meet you there.” His comfort food. Yeri is getting his comfort food; she knows what his comfort food is and she thinks he needs it. He’s pathetic.

He barely notices it when Joy wraps her arms around his back and apparates with him, touching down in the darkened alley to the left of his house. He pulls away from her then, determined to get inside with his own strength.

“What was that about Doyoung?” Joy says as soon as the door closes behind them and he can hear the frantic concern in her voice and hates that he put it there. He still feels like he’s choking, as if something is trying to force itself through his throat and he has no idea if it’s going to sink into his stomach or come out the other way. He would prefer not to throw up anymore today. 

“Just … so many … feelings,” he finally admits and while the words hang in the air between them, he slumps in defeat. He didn’t want to admit it out loud—would have preferred to say something like he swallowed a bug and it inexplicably drove him mad. But of course Joy wouldn't have believed him. 

“Okay,” Joy says, stretching the word out while clearly doing her best not to get all up in his face like she tends to do. He appreciates her restraint.   
“So you fucked Jaehyun who has a boyfriend and now you have feelings for him?” He also appreciates her complete lack of judgement.   
“Not exactly, he didn’t have … they weren’t … it was complicated. Fuck! Why can’t I speak in full sentences?!”

“Because you’re distressed, and you seriously need a drink,” Joy takes him by the forearm and pulls him from the entryway and up the stairs to the library which isn’t really so much a library of books but rather alcohol. The one thing his house sorely lacks is a wine cellar. He makes a note to ask if Yeri has one.

“Have you moved in with Yeri yet?” he asks while Joy pours them both a full glass of whiskey. You don’t measure thumbs in times of distress.

“Not officially, but yes. Now back to you, don’t think I’m letting you get away from telling me everything and we only have so long before Yeri comes back.” Another thing he appreciates about his best friend; she keeps his secrets even from her most important person.

So he tells her—in as much detail as he remembers—about everything from what he and Jaehyun talked about (excluding the matter of Jaehyun’s family, he can keep secrets too) and the hilarious, sexual diary they read and how it led to them having not at all hilarious but rather mindblowing sex for hours and hours before he left in the early morning after having watched Jaehyun fall asleep. In hindsight he can’t help but think how pathetic that was of him. 

“He sucked your dick so good you fell in love with him? I’m kidding!” Joy laughs, cutting him off before he can open his mouth to protest. That is not  _ at all _ what happened. Or, it’s not the whole story at least, but Jaehyun did give amazing head. 

“But real talk Doyoung; if you have feelings for him again, are you sure they ever even went away? I know you don’t have the best track record when it comes to relationships and-”   
“And you want to know if this is why.”

He takes a moment before answering; it’s something he’s thought about a lot over the last two weeks, clinging to the back of his mind like an itch he was too lazy to scratch. At least on the days he was conscious. 

“I don’t know,” he says, because it’s the truth. If he’s had romantic feelings for Jaehyun getting in the way of his love life this whole time, then they have been safely hidden behind a thick layer of denial and stupidity. 

“Have I thought about him a lot over the years? Yes, of course. I’ve thought about what he might have been up to and when he started publishing papers I read all of them I even got a subscription for  _ Horticulture Weekly _ so I wouldn't miss any and when they announced he would be the new Professor of Herbology I drafted a letter congratulating him that I never sent and now that I think about it I’ve probably always felt a little guilty that I never reached out and allowed us to drift apart so completely.”

“I am rambling again.”

“Oh sweetie,” Joy coos and moves to sit on the arm of his chair and he lets himself slip into the softness of her embrace more for her sake than his. His turbulent thoughts have already aligned themselves, but she likes comforting him and anyway, he can’t deny that Joy’s motherly hugs are nice. 

“I think you love him,” she says softly, her cheek pressed to his hair, and he sighs.   
“I think so too.”

They stay that way until Yeri comes ambling up the stairs with several bags of food that they spread out over the coffee table in front of the fireplace. It’s far too much food for the three of them, but after a couple conservation spells they settle in for the day in an armchair each with a bottle of wine that quickly turns into two, and then three,

It’s only later—when the alcohol has left his mind blissfully numb—that the realisation hits him with belated force. He knows the other face; the large form; the dumb, over-excited smile. He can all but hear the american drawl of the man’s voice in his head and a freezing cold pit breaks open inside him. The american with the magic-fearing muggle parents; he’s still here. And he’s with Jaehyun.

Doyoung spends the rest of the weekend in a haze—Joy and Yeri never left, and his wine library is significantly emptier than it was before which explains why he wakes up with a splitting headache once again. His tolerance is generally above average, but if he does the unthinkable and downs a whole bottle of red on his own—like he did the night before—then he deserves to have his head pounding off his shoulders.    
It would all be a little easier to bear if the office wasn’t mired in chaos even before he clocked in. Apparently it’s been one hell of a night as one team is missing and another has been hospitalised and on top of it all Irene is on personal leave. That last detail is what concerns him the most.  _ He _ hasn’t been reported missing and he’s certain that’s Irene’s doing—keeping him off the books as much as she can. Still, he wonders if she was ever worried about him.

“Here you go Mr. Kim.” Mark tries to hand him a cup of coffee; standing with his feet properly gathered and holding the steaming mug like an offering, one hand under the bottom of it.

“I didn’t ask for a coffee,” he says and Mark sputters. He probably looks like he needs one, but Mark is too polite to ever say that. 

“I noticed you hadn’t had your morning cup yet,” Mark comments, as if a  _ morning cup _ is even in Doyoung’s vocabulary. What’s the point of only drinking coffee in the morning when everyone else is usually too tired to give him a hard time. 

“Get me some tea, I have a headache.” He waves Mark off—uncaring when he almost upsets the hot mug with his hand—and his assistant hurries off to do his bidding. Maybe he’s not completely useless after all; even so, he deserves some credit for having lasted this long.

Of all the days for Irene to not be in the office. Had she been in, he could have gone straight to her with his report—the real one and the fake—but instead he is stuck in line (a fucking line) at the receptionist desk to deliver his real but fake mission report for the archive. Bureaucracy. 

“Morning hot stuff, you got something for me?” Jungwoo, the young and newly-appointed receptionist, greets him when he finally reaches the front of the line.

“At least make an attempt at professionalism,” he complains and throws his one-page file on the desk. Jungwoo is a flirt, but he doesn’t have the energy to deal with it right now. 

“I can’t help myself, I like men who order me around.” Jungwoo also doesn’t know when to stop and workplace ethics is a thing he clearly never bothered to learn. 

“One more word from you and I’m filing a harassment claim,” he says, tapping his fingers impatiently against his own thigh while Jungwoo glances over his report and stamps it for approval. He’s not very thorough with his job, but Doyoung can’t blame him. If  _ his _ work consisted solely of proofreading and passing on field reports, he would probably die from boredom. 

“Mr.Kim!” Jungwoo fans himself with the sealed report. “File me!” 

He gives Jungwoo one last scathing look and turns on his heel to stride back to his office—he learned long ago that as long as he walks with purpose no one bothers him. Still, he doesn’t miss the  _ tsk _ and sigh from Jisoo standing behind him in line as she says to Jungwoo, “you clearly haven’t been here long enough to know that Doyoung  _ always  _ follows through on his words.”

He sighs deeply when the door to his office closes behind him and leans against it. What he wouldn’t give for a little bit of solitude—somewhere to hide from the rest of the world until his own existence turns irrelevant, when no one needs him, no one  _ expects _ anything from him. His treacherous mind shows him an image of two armchairs in front of a burning hearth, and a soft bed underneath a blue, vaulted ceiling. He’s surprised it didn’t simply show him an image of Jaehyun’s dimples; maybe because they’re not so much a refuge, but his temptation to eternal damnation. He tries—he really does—to not think about Jaehyun as someone he can have, but it’s useless. His protective instinct has reared its domineering head and he wants nothing more than to rip Jaehyun from that no-good, sleazeball, low-life of an american smuggler, but it’s not his place. If he could only find something on the guy—actual proof that he did smuggle something into the country—then he could have him gone, maybe even banned from ever entering the country again. That would be nice. 

His feet have led him all the way to the archive hall before his mind catches up. He really means to spend his time—already a precious commodity—on combing through this meager, one-page report on a potential smuggler?  _ Johnny, _ he reads at the top of the file, written in Ten’s cursive quillmanship. 

Regaining his senses, he throws the file back at the shelves and watches as it floats slowly back into its designated place. Going after Johnny now wouldn't be right for so many reasons, most of all because of his self-interest in seeing him gone.

It’s beneath him to use his power and position like that; he’s above such petty games. But even as he tells himself that, he doesn’t believe it. And it only becomes that much clearer to him the lengths he is willing—have _always_ _been_ willing—to go for Jung Jaehyun, the only man he’s ever loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to take a moment to thank my readers because I appreciate every single one of you!  
and to also say that if any of you feel like i've misrepresented you in any way in my writing to please tell me. as a human being i'm always learning and i just recently learned what a deadname is and have therefor decided to go back and change Yuta's reasoning for keeping their name.  
so that was long, but i wanted to say it. thank you all so much<3


	11. Jaehyun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are starting to unravel! as of now i have no idea how long this fic will be, it can go on or suddenly wrap itself up who even knows, but it's not done yet!
> 
> hope you enjoy<3

The orb of prophecy whispers in his mind while he stands motionless on the sidewalk outside his dad’s townhouse. He doesn’t know  _ why _ he’s there, only that he still wants to see his dad and not just because of the innocuous glass ball in his hand. He had even taken a sick day—which he realises now isn’t a lie anymore as he does feel rather queasy—but he can’t bring himself to ring the doorbell. Clearly, he has developed an aversion to doors. 

Maybe he should have flooed; that way he could’ve worked up the nerve in his own living room and once he jumped into it there’d be no turning back. Because his father would know he tried, and the mile Jaehyun gave would turn into his dad taking ten. 

That’s not how the saying goes, but an inch has never felt like just an inch to Jaehyun—more like a looming mass of splintered debris falling over his head. 

The door opens before Jaehyun has decided if he’s ready for this, but it’s not his father in the doorway but a tall, dark-skinned man with curly brown hair and one blind eye.  _ Dale of the Wizengamot. _

“Jaehyun?” he says and his voice is so gentle Jaehyun thinks he might cry. He’s not ready for this after all, he decides as he hastily pushes the glass orb in  _ Dale’s _ hands and disapparates without waiting for another word from the man’s painfully kind voice. 

He ends up at The Three Broomsticks instead; feeling the need to burn his thoughts away with Firewhiskey even though he’s never considered himself much of a day drinker. But he orders a bottle, hood drawn low over his face just in case someone should recognise him when he is—by all accounts—playing hooky. 

Deep in thought about how much he wishes he didn’t have any thoughts, it takes him a second too long to recognise the doe-eyed face staring up at him from one of the tables pushed against the wall. He backtracks quickly, a smile already forming on his face as the puzzle pieces makes a familiar picture. It must have been Doyoung’s fumbling speechlessness that made him not recognise him at first; uncertainty isn’t something he’s used to seeing in his old friend. 

“Jaehyun! It is you,” Doyoung knocks against the table when he rises—causing his drink to spill, but without a glance at the mess he vanishes it all with a wave of his hand. He’s too busy pulling Jaehyun into a hug anyway. It’s nice, but it’s also rushed and a little clumsy and he wonders if Doyoung might be drunk. 

“I was looking for you—in your greenhouses—they told me you were sick,” Doyoung babbles and pulls a chair out for him into which he falls gracelessly, hiding the bottle of Firewhiskey between his knees. “I thought I might as well have breakfast before going back to work so here I am. And here you are. Are you alright?” Doyoung makes a move to press the back of his hand against Jaehyun’s forehead but aborts the movement only inches from his face, sitting back in his seat with an embarrassed laugh. Something is definitely wrong with him.

“I’m f-fine, am not s-sick,” he chews his bottom lip and wrings his hand around the metal cap on the whiskey bottle until it digs into his skin. “I w-went to see my-my dad.”

“Oh,” Doyoung says—summing up the gravity of that statement in one, softly uttered, syllable. 

“How’d that go?” he asks, a sympathetic furrow creasing his brow. Doyoung knows he hasn’t talked to his dad in years, and he was there when he was sixteen and unable to understand why his father was leaving them. He has been in the thick of it since the beginning, and his silent support is a comfort. Jaehyun can’t help but compare it to Johnny when he first told  _ him _ —camped on the beach of some uninhabited greek island—and his insistence that he would regret it if he didn’t reconcile with his dad. 

He shakes his head in lieu of an answer and Doyoung hums.

“You didn’t see him?” he guesses and Jaehyun marvels at how he is somehow always correct. 

“Saw  _ Dale _ ,” he murmurs out the corner of his mouth, still chewing on his bottom lip and wringing his hand around the bottle neck. It’s a miracle it hasn’t broken off already. 

“I’m guessing that’s as awkward as ever.” Doyoung chews on a roasted potato boat from his plate and knocks his feet into Jaehyun’s when he folds them out under the table. 

“Is everything alright though? You look a little peckish,” Doyoung says and his hand jerks as if he wants to reach out and touch him, but his restraint wins this time as well. It’s so different from the last time they were together and Jaehyun hates himself a little bit for hating it. He chose Johnny; he has no business longing after Doyoung. 

“I n-needed to-to talk to him about s...something,” he mumbles, too nervous around this new, jumpy Doyoung to go into detail even if he wants to. 

Doyoung hums again and his eyes flit several times to the table, or through it Jaehyun presumes—at the bottle between his knees—when Doyoung stops a passing waiter and asks for two glasses.

“Or were you planning on saving that?” he asks and points a finger at him and Jaehyun laughs and pulls the bottle out, setting it heavily on the table and finally unscrewing the cap that has been creating red marks in the palm of his hand. 

“Was gonna d-drink it,” he laughs, and once the waiter returns, he pours them both half a glass each.

They’re on their third glass of Firewhiskey and Doyoung’s jumpiness has all but disappeared, and the way he slouches in his seat with his chin resting in his palm and looks at Jaehyun with hooded eyes is more reminiscent of the man he has come to know. It was cute the way Doyoung practically thrummed with nervous energy—his big, round eyes and restless limbs more reminiscent of a bunny—but this relaxed, docile version is better for his own frayed nerves. 

“Why I was looking for you?” Doyoung repeats his question and sits a little straighter before leaning over the table towards him. “I found your letter, probably way late, I wasn’t home, I think, when it arrived.” 

He takes a long drink of Firewhiskey—from Jaehyun’s glass, but he doesn’t comment—and slumps back into his chair. 

“How’d you know it was my drawing? And where did you find it?” he asks and Jaehyun subconsciously touches his side where the drawing has been forever inked into his skin. It feels warm—as if Doyoung’s presence activated it somehow—but he knows that’s just his imagination. 

“I found it in a b...in a book,” he says and digs into the enchanted pockets of his coat until his fingers wrap around the worn cover of the book. 

“ _ Vingt mile lieues sous les mers _ ,” Doyoung reads the title out loud, traces the gilded swirls on the dark green book and laughs a little. “I bought this on our date to Camden Market, do you remember? The first weekend after I’d graduated.”

He remembers it well; remembers every detail of that summer before they broke up. They had made a game out of who could spot the magical booths first.

“I remember y-you couldn’t see the di...difference between magical a-and muggle booths,” he laughs into his hand, leaning against the wall for support.

“Yeah I sucked at that,” Doyoung laughs as well and pours the rest of the Firewhiskey into their glasses. “I don’t know which one is mine,” he says and Jaehyun laughs and takes one at random, not caring if it’s his or Doyoung’s.

“You’ve a-already drank from b-both anyway,” he says against the rim of the glass and downs the last of it all at once. It burns all the way down to his stomach and warms him from the inside out.

“I’ve drank so much in the last few days I’m pretty sure my body is now made up of sixty percent alcohol instead of water,” Doyoung whines, but finishes the last of the Firewhiskey either way.

“I got it tattooed,” Jaehyun blurts, surprising himself as well as the words seemingly didn’t even form in his mind before exiting his mouth. It takes Doyoung several seconds to catch up, but when he does his face melts from shock to delight before he sits up straight and his face closes off in polite interest. 

“Oh, okay,” he says and silence stretches between them for several seconds before Doyoung’s composure breaks, “can I see it?”

And so they end up crammed in a bathroom stall because Jaehyun is too much of a prude to lift his shirt up for other people to see; and even if it’s only Doyoung, he still feels uncomfortable. But when Doyoung sees the inked submarine on the cusp of being swallowed by a violent maelstrom and gently presses his fingers to the lines he’d drawn so long ago, it all melts away. 

“Beautiful work,” he murmurs as he traces the curves of the maelstrom, “did you go to  _ her _ ?”

“Mhm, sh...she’s the one who re-recognised it.”

“Oh?” Doyoung laughs under his breath and lifts Jaehyun’s shirt and knitted sweater up more for an even closer look. 

“You’re so warm,” he comments and Jaehyun sucks a startled breath through his nose and flinches visibly under Doyoung’s touch.

“Sorry,” Doyoung laughs embarrassedly and pulls his hands back and Jaehyun lets his clothes fall back into place. Doyoung looks several times between Jaehyun’s shoulder and face, clearly debating what to say before landing on, “so how’s it going; the … complication?”

Jaehyun wants to laugh at the thought that Johnny is still a complication and not his boyfriend, but he doesn’t know why it’s so funny to him.

“Good,” Jaehyun says while his mind screams;  _ no it’s not good you know that why would you say that _ , but he only smiles. He wants to kiss Doyoung.

“That’s good … good,” Doyoung nods repeatedly as if he was commenting on something as innocuous as the nice weather they’ve been having and Jaehyun would have to be dense not to catch on to how utterly insincere it is. 

“We should,” Doyoung turns fumblingly to the door and makes to open it, almost as jumpy as he was earlier except the alcohol has slowed him down.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun sighs and Doyoung pushes the door open and steps out. He closes the door again halfway before Jaehyun can follow and he’s just about to scoff indignantly when Doyoung’s voice, embarrassed and high, sounds from the other side; “oh, there’s no more toilet paper, you should take that one.”

He is obviously talking to some unknown soul entering the bathroom and Jaehyun waits patiently, chewing his bottom lip and digging his right thumb into the palm of his left hand. He can’t help but think what would have happened if Johnny hadn’t sent him that letter after their night together, or if Doyoung had been quicker. Would they have been making out in the bathroom stall right now, like how Doyoung is doing his best to avoid this stranger from thinking? Maybe even doing more than that? Would this have been a date? One where he actually feels at ease because he knows Doyoung understands him? Would they have been an  _ item _ ?

He thinks so; Doyoung showed his hand on the night they spent together and if not for Jaehyun’s indecisiveness and sense of obligation he probably would’ve been more open to accepting it. But he  _ chose _ Johnny. That’s the decision he made and he can’t go back on it now. 

Doyoung throws the door open then and pulls him out by the front of his sweater and hurries him out of the bathroom. When they’re halfway through the pub, Jaehyun takes Doyoung’s hand and allows himself to be led out into the street. It all feels a little too much like the old days, even before they were a couple and Doyoung was his interesting and new,  _ Slytherin  _ friend. 

That was always such a big thing to everyone else around him; that Doyoung was not only a Pureblood, but a Slytherin as well. To everyone but Mark, surprisingly enough, though he was always much more interested in Doyoung’s constant plus one; Park Sooyoung.

Even then, Doyoung would always take his hand whenever he could—when he got excited or he was mad about something and even just because they hadn’t seen each other all day—and Jaehyun remembers the butterflies in his stomach, how he always worried if his palms were sweaty and if Doyoung would mind if he tangled their fingers. He had never had a crush like that before; and when Doyoung finally told him that not only did he know but he felt the same way, was the best day of his life. 

“Hey?” Doyoung says, squeezing his hand and tilting his head to look into his eyes. “Are you still with me?” There is a smile on his face, muted and playful, and Jaehyun wonders if he is remembering the same thing he is and maybe that’s why he hasn’t let go of their hands yet. 

“Sorry,” he whispers and feels the corners of his mouth jerk in nervous tics. 

“Don’t worry about it, we all get lost in thought sometimes,” Doyoung says and turns towards the castle in the distance, not letting go of Jaehyun’s hand even when he starts to walk. 

“M-my bag!” Jaehyun suddenly remembers as his back feels suspiciously bare, but before he can even turn back to The Three Broomsticks Doyoung holds his backpack up in front of him and gives it a little shake.

“I have it right here,” he says and slings it back over his own shoulder before Jaehyun can take it from him. 

They’re passing the last row of houses in Hogsmeade before Jaehyun’s mind stops reciting the repetitive mantra of  _ ohmygodsohmygodsohmygods _ and he realises that Doyoung intends to walk him back to the castle. 

“Wha’re you d-doin?” he asks, his stutter mixed with his tipsy mumble making his words nearly incomprehensible, but Doyoung understands him anyway. 

“Walking you back of course,” Doyoung hums and looks out at the frost-covered marshland on either side of the cobbled path. Their hands are still clutched firmly, swaying gently between them as they walk. It’s nice, almost like they’re friends, and it reminds him of when he was twelve and leading a wide-eyed and overwhelmed, eleven-year-old Mark around Hogwarts by the hand, showing him everything he would need to know. 

“Is that okay?” Doyoung asks a long while later—Jaehyun presumes at least as the castle walls are much closer than they were before.

“Mhm,” he hurries to assure him it’s more than okay. “Sorry, I was r...reminiscing.” 

Doyoung hums and asks “about what?” and pulls them to a stop several meters from the castle gates.

“Just … Mark,” he mumbles, finally pulling his hand from Doyoung’s to wrap his arms tightly around himself. He feels vulnerable all of a sudden—the barren white of the snowy landscape feels too big and open, he might very well get lost in it. 

“Ah, yes. Did I mention last time that I work with him?” Doyoung asks and Jaehyun shakes his head, but he already knew anyway. Mark had sent him a letter when he got the job—they were still under the belief that they could patch things up—mostly for confirmation that the Doyoung Kim he would be working with was the same Doyoung Kim Jaehyun had dated in school. He hadn’t mentioned anything to Doyoung because frankly, he hadn’t wanted to talk about Mark the last time they saw each other. Now, he finds he sort of does, and he is pretty certain seeing his mom is what changed his mind. 

“He’s worried about you, you know?” Doyoung says before he can find a proper response and then he doesn’t want to talk about Mark after all. If he was so worried he could have done something about it. 

His mood promptly soured, he grunts and turns to the open gates, striding through them with an upset pout on his face. He’s being petty—it’s been his automated response to anything Mark for months now—but he doesn’t care, even if it’ll make him seem childish in front of Doyoung. Okay, maybe he cares a little bit about that. 

“I’m sorry,” Doyoung jogs after him and wraps a hand around his bicep to pull him to a stop. Doyoung really shouldn’t manhandle him so much, and he opens his mouth to say so when their eyes meet and any words he might have said is stolen from him. Doyoung’s wide eyes are brimming with distress, as if the small act of Jaehyun stomping away from him was the worst thing he could have possibly done. Almost as if the thought of Jaehyun leaving him behind was too much to bear. 

“I’m sorry, it’s not my place!” Doyoung stutters, breathing heavily and still gripping Jaehyun’s bicep with too much strength. 

“N-no,” he fumbles, pushed off balance by Doyoung’s intense reaction. “N-no it’s-it’s not you.” Doyoung deflates as quickly as a popped balloon, his hand falling from Jaehyun’s arm to swing lifelessly at his side while his face gets all frozen in a wide-eyed state, and once again Jaehyun is reminded of a rabbit frozen in place. Or maybe bunny is more accurate after all; the hints of innocence in Doyoung’s dark, round eyes make him look younger than he actually is. 

“Yes, of course,” Doyoung shakes himself loose, clearing his throat several times while he straightens his blazer and avoids Jaehyun’s eyes. 

“Mark m-makes me angry … is all,” he mumbles and runs a hand through his hair, blowing at it through his mouth when it only flops back into his face and tickles his nose. He needs a haircut.

“You could afford one, yes,” Doyoung chuckles and Jaehyun realises he made the comment to himself out loud. “But you don’t need to, you look cute,” he says next and the frozen bunny look makes another appearance. “I mean … no, there’s no way of twisting that.”

It takes a lot to contain his amusement, but somehow Jaehyun manages it enough to pat Doyoung reassuringly on the shoulder and force out a choked “it’s okay,” before it overwhelms him in a fit of giggles. So this is why Doyoung has been acting so weird all morning; he must have been trying to navigate around his physical attraction for Jaehyun that in  _ his _ mind isn’t welcomed anymore. He should’ve realised. It’s not like  _ he _ has been able to stop thinking about the night they spent together either, after all it was pretty exceptional. 

“It’s f-fine, don’t wo-worry about it,” he says once he’s got himself under control, clapping his hand on Doyoung’s shoulder once again. He resumes walking up the snow-covered path to the castle, veering right when he realises his kids should be in class right now and he should probably avoid the greenhouse. 

“You coming?” he says over his shoulder when Doyoung doesn’t follow, but thankfully the invitation is all Doyoung needs as he hurries to catch up. 

“We c-can have some...some more wine,” he smiles at Doyoung, feels it grow and dimple his cheeks when Doyoung smiles back.

“That sounds nice, though I was wondering … is there any way you could get me access to the restricted section of the library?” Doyoung looks and sounds hesitant, but Jaehyun doesn’t get why.

“O-of course I can, I’m a-a teacher now. I have a-access to pretty much e-everything,” he smiles satisfactorily to himself when he says this. The most welcomed bit of privilege that comes with being a teacher is the stretches of hidden corridors protected by paintings instructed to only let Professors through. Like the talking teapot that he pulls Doyoung to a stop in front of, just to the right of the entrance door. 

“Marigolds,” he says and the painted teapot blows its top off and wispy steam curls to spell the words  _ hello handsome _ before the frame swings outward, revealing an opening far bigger than the size of the painting. 

“Did that teapot just flirt with you?” Doyoung laughs as they enter the narrow corridor. It’s badly lit and when the painting closes behind them, Jaehyun is forced to light his wand so they don’t trip on the creaky stairs going upwards in an exhaustive slope.

“What kind of shortcut is this?” Doyoung complains just as Jaehyun reaches the top a couple steps ahead of him. “The m-magical kind,” Jaehyun says and pushes on the wall in front of him until it swings open right across from the painted Olwenna steadfastly guarding his chambers. 

“Is this?” Doyoung trails off when the painting swings aside. “But the library,” he tries again and somehow it makes Jaehyun feel good to hear him fumble for words. It makes him feel a bit better about himself when someone as eloquent as Doyoung struggles in the same way he does every day. He decides not to bother with an explanation; his intention is to bring Doyoung to the library, but he’s not quite done drinking yet and there are no rules that he knows of that says they can’t do both. 

Doyoung hasn’t moved to step even a foot inside his rooms by the time Jaehyun returns to his side and he can’t help but laugh at him. It’s obvious what Doyoung is thinking about—or maybe trying  _ not _ to think about—and he feels a sudden urge to make fun of him for it.

“N...no smut today,” he pokes Doyoung in the side and laughs when he jumps, the contents of Jaehyun’s backpack rattling loudly. “Come on,” he giggles and pulls Doyoung along back into the secret passageway. The stairs veer in the opposite direction and in no time at all they’re standing in front of the library, the hallway empty of anyone but them. It won’t last long—the clock hanging above the grand doors tell him it is almost noon and soon the hallway will be teeming with students on their way to lunch—so he pulls Doyoung along and doesn’t slow down until the door of the restricted section falls closed behind them with a woosh and an ominous thud. Then everything is quiet.

There is no one else in the room and Doyoung stands silent as a mouse behind him and even his thoughts are quiet when he turns and meets eyes with Doyoung. There’s not much room between them and all the built-up amusement leaves Jaehyun like water over a cliff when Doyoung’s eyes move down his face and glues itself to his lips. He could make fun of Doyoung when his obvious attraction didn’t affect him, but when they’re all but pressed against each other in the dark and it feels like Doyoung might very well kiss him, he’s hard-pressed to remember why that’s not a good idea. 

“Why don’t you,” Doyoung says quietly, clears his throat. “Why don’t you find a table? I just want to have a look-” he stops himself from saying more and Jaehyun’s interest is piqued. What  _ could _ Doyoung need the Hogwarts library for when he must have access to just as much if not more information in the Ministry of Magic?

His head tilts inquisitively, but he doesn’t question it. Doyoung’s business is his business and even if it’s business not suited for governmental knowledge then all he can really do is welcome Doyoung in his boat. 

Jaehyun makes a sound of agreement and flees, bottle of wine tucked under one arm and glasses clinking where he holds them by the stem in one hand. He finds a table quite a way from the door and immediately pours himself a healthy glass; the crispness of the white wine makes it almost too easy to down all of it at once, but it makes him feel better so he doesn’t much care. 

Doyoung is gone long enough for the alcohol to settle in his blood and for that niggling worry to crawl its way to the forefront of his mind. He had almost kissed Doyoung—had wanted to with every fiber of his being—and he worries what it might mean for his already slim morality that he had never once forgotten about Johnny, he simply didn’t care. 

He tries to imagine a reality where Johnny never left him to begin with; would they still end up where they are now? Johnny desperately clinging while never being capable of understanding Jaehyun, and him longing for something else— _ someone  _ else—but being too cowardly to do something about it. He knows what is keeping him back, but knowing changes nothing. Being self-aware has never done him any favours. 

The resounding  _ thump _ of a heavy stack of books hitting the table startles him almost out of his chair, making him spill his wine all over the table. Doyoung vanishes the spill with a mindless wave of a hand—if only he could clean up Jaehyun’s internal mess as easily—and pours himself a glass of wine before he even sits down. Jaehyun follows the movement of his hand as it wraps around the glass chalice—long, delicate fingers and Doyoung’s family ring that he never wore while in school—until his eyes fall to the stack of books and he promptly chokes.

“B-b-blood magic?!” He fumbles his words as much out of surprise as from his stutter and meets Doyoung’s wide-blown eyes with his equally startled gaze. Doyoung pulls the books closer towards himself and looks over them with panicked scrutiny, but it’s no use. He had done a good job of hiding the spines of the books and Jaehyun wouldn't have known them at all if not for the fact that he spent hours perusing the exact same books that one night in sixth grade when he managed to sneak into the restricted section of the library. 

“It’s for a case,” Doyoung says and when Jaehyun meets his eyes again it feels like he is looking at a different person. The look in Doyoung’s eyes is cold—closed-off and serious in a way he has never seen him before—and it sends a thrill of excitement down his spine.

“I don’t care,” he whispers and holds Doyoung’s gaze until he slumps back into his seat and the ice melts, then he pulls the top book from the stack and flips it open on the table between them.

“W-what do you n-need to know?” 

He can tell Doyoung is hesitant, but whether from the alcohol in his system or something else, he eventually decides to trust him and Jaehyun reaches for the rest of the stack and orders them by levels of usefulness. 

“R-rituals, history, j-journals a-and et cetera,” he says as he points at the books in order. The one still open in between them is a historic recollection of the presumed birth of blood magic up until it was banned in the 1600s. There is nothing else after that, as if the practice ceased to exist. 

“What do you know about wolves?” Doyoung asks, twisting his signet ring around his finger. There is a strained lilt to his voice and Jaehyun wonders what kind of strange encounter he must have had. He wonders if it was as strange as the one he had, two years ago in the mountains of Austria.

“O-only G-grand M-masters have w-wolves,” he says, feeling as if the words stick to the inside of his throat, making his stutter even worse. He pulls a book from the  _ rituals _ pile and flips through it until he finds the right chapter, wordlessly showing it to Doyoung. 

There is not much for him to do but wait while Doyoung reads; the wine looks unappetizing all of a sudden and he is unable to focus on anything other than what is right in front of him.  _ Blood Magic _ , it sounds so ominous and for good reason. In the two years he spent flitting about the continent looking for anything that could cure his mom, he was only ever in any kind of danger  _ once _ ; when he met a Grand Master, wandering aimlessly around the forested base of a large mountain. The older, grey-haired man was kind and almost gentle and he was handsome enough that Jaehyun—still reeling from Johnny’s betrayal—didn’t hesitate to invite him into his bed. 

“That’s brutal,” Doyoung says quietly, taking Jaehyun’s attention once again. Brutal is a mild description. 

“So, it’s like an initiation to becoming a Grand Master? A requirement they have to fulfill?” Doyoung looks between him and the book, silently asking for confirmation, and Jaehyun nods with a grimace twisting his mouth. 

“ _ He _ will t-take the litter f-from the mom a-and t-tie the cubs to his l-life f-force.”

“It says  _ burns free will from their vessels _ . I don’t know if I want to know how literal this text is. And  _ he _ ?” Doyoung asks with a raised eyebrow and Jaehyun nods again with another grimace. “No women a...llowed.”

“They don’t blink an eye at animal cruelty, of course they’re sexist.” The disgusted grimace twisting Doyoung’s face is a bit of a relief. With the memory of his old dream and Doyoung’s sudden interest in Blood Magic, he had been a little worried for a second. He’ll forgive a lot, but he doubts he could forgive even Doyoung for something like this. 

He wants a smoke all of a sudden, but he knows from experience that mixing alcohol and wizweed is not a good idea so he ignores the urge. Instead he busies his hands with rearranging the books and flipping mindlessly through them one after the other.

“How do you know so much?” Doyoung asks after a lengthy silence where Jaehyun thought he had been reading, but when he looks up from his own diversion he finds Doyoung simply staring at him, hands folded around the stem of his glass. For a moment he debates telling the truth and finally letting Doyoung in on the secret he’s carried since before they met, but honesty is a fleeting notion. 

“I...I m-met a Grand Master once, we had s-sex,” he mumbles the last bit into his collar but of course Doyoung hears him.

“Did he try to initiate you?” he laughs and there is something of a kindred spirit to be found in that laugh that finally puts Jaehyun at ease. He laughs alongside Doyoung and takes a sip of wine, leaning an elbow on the table afterwards. 

“He st-started to, but I s-somehow m...managed to knock him out.”

“You escaped.”

“I escaped.”

They are still laughing—quietly and intimately, touching shoulders—when Doyoung pulls a folded piece of parchment from his inner jacket pocket. He unfolds it on top of the open pages of a book and strokes it flat with the palm of his hand.

“Have you ever seen this symbol before?” he asks and Jaehyun feels an odd sense of pride that Doyoung trusts him with this; it’s obvious this broken infinity symbol is the cause of his secrecy. Be that as it may, he has never seen it before. 

“No, sorry. B-blood Magic, they don’t b...believe in the infinite, they wouldn't u-use this.”

Doyoung’s sigh is heavy enough to hold all worldly problems. 

“Another dead end,” he says to himself before beginning to pack up all the books they have been perusing for who knows how long. 

“Thank you,” he says all of a sudden, turning to Jaehyun and folding a hand over his. “I’ve had a really great time today.”

Their eyes meet and Jaehyun feels like he’s drowning—pulled in by the deep colour of Doyoung’s eyes, he is ready to submerge himself in their perfect shape. He doesn’t know if he says anything, but Doyoung smiles so he must have. All he wants to do is stay right there, grow roots and fossilise so that he can stare into Doyoung’s eyes for the rest of eternity. 

Instead he is rudely interrupted by a loud  _ pop _ and a pitchy voice calling “Master Jaehyun? Master Jaehyun?”

“Damn menace,” Doyoung grunts and Jaehyun hits him squarely in the chest.

“What?” Doyoung shrugs, that hint of Pureblood arrogance he could never shake shining through. 

“Wh...what is it R-rola?” Jaehyun asks, turning to the house-elf standing by his chair tapping his foot. 

“Master Jaehyun’s friend is looking for him. He is in Master Jaehyun’s chambers,” Rola says and in the next second he is gone. Jaehyun curses under his breath and hurriedly gathers his things as a feeling of guilt settles like a stone in his stomach.  _ Johnny _ .

“I should go,” he mumbles and Doyoung seems to be infected by his sudden haste as he empties his wine glass in one go and sends the books floating back to their designated spots.

“Guess I won’t be needing these anymore,” he says and tries another laugh but it sounds strained as opposed to the easy camaraderie they’ve left behind. Jaehyun has his backpack slung over one shoulder—now also holding an empty wine bottle and two fragile glass chalices he isn’t completely sure will survive much more than another few seconds—and is ready to say his goodbye when Doyoung’s hand once again grasps his. 

Before he can say anything, Doyoung is close enough that he can feel his breath on his face and then there are lips on his cheek, lingering several seconds longer than is in any way appropriate but it’s hard to stop when neither of them even wants to.

“I’m sorry,” Doyoung mumbles when he finally pulls away and Jaehyun knows why he is apologising, but he also knows that he should be the one apologising. Because not only is it unfair to Johnny for him to allow Doyoung so close; it’s unfair of him to have given Doyoung reason to believe he wants him so close. Even if it’s true. 

But true to his character he says nothing instead and leaves Doyoung with a small smile and a brief caress of fingers entwining before slipping apart. 


	12. Doyoung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! hopefully i still have some readers left. people have been wondering about johnny and well...this is the chapter for answers (at least some of them) enjoy!

He had made an utter fool of himself. As simple as that; an idiotic, love-sick fool, throwing himself at Jaehyun as if he has no dignity left. He supposes it’s true, after all it’s only been a day since he fell prey to his most base desire of pettiness when he dug for dirt on the man who stole Jaehyun from under his nose. However brief a lapse it was. 

With his hand still burning from Jaehyun’s touch, he procures a quill and spare piece of parchment from the box of stationary set into the desk beside him and hurriedly writes down short notes of everything he read and that Jaehyun told him. Despite his generally flawless memory, he fears he might forget everything from today that is not the play of light in Jaehyun’s beautiful eyes or the feel of his inked skin under his fingertips.

The tattoo had thrown him, that’s for sure. It wasn’t something big—just a sketch he did one day, he doesn’t even know when, in that long summer they spent together in Jaehyun’s family home. He doesn’t remember what they were doing or when it was or how it ended up in _ his _ book but in Jaehyun’s father’s bookshelf. He suppose he’ll never know, not that it matters. What matters is that Jaehyun, for some unfathomable reason, liked it enough to permanently etch it on his skin. And in such a vulnerable place as well. 

He rests a hand against his own side, remembering the agony he went through over and over as a rebellious younger son just to paint his skin with images of his own choosing; to have some control of his own self. It was such a big deal for him back then, now they serve only as reminders of his forsaken independence. Though in that regard, he has only himself to blame.

He forwent his own happiness the day he chose not to abandon his parents the way they abandoned his older brother. Instead of teaching them a lesson as he had so desperately wanted at the time, he stepped up and took on the role of heir in Donghyun’s place. And his insistence on pleasing his parents by marrying a good Pureblood witch who could carry his children has cost him Jaehyun. He knows that better than anything now. The conflict he saw in Jaehyun’s eyes tells him clear as day that he had his shot and blew it. 

But more than his personal happiness he has forsaken himself—his dreams and ambitions, everything he worked to achieve. And it’s because of this damned case. He’s been so focused on solving something impossible and to reap the glory such a feat would bring him, that he has completely overlooked the consequences it’s had on his life, not to mention his _ career _.

As he leaves Hogwarts behind, he tries to imagine where he would be right now if not for this fraud-murder-conspiracy investigation. If he had worked steadily and well and finished his share of smaller, but solvable cases he probably would’ve had more to his name than a private office and the epithet Captain. He never lied to Irene—he’s never been after her position, his ambitions go much higher than that—but because of his own stubbornness he’s nowhere close to where he wants to be.

In a fit of anger he throws the piece of parchment into the air and slashes his wand at it, lighting it on fire. It falls to the snow-covered ground, burning to ashes on the way until there’s nothing left of it. Still running on the fumes of his ire he disapparates, intent on seeking out the one person who might shed some light on this damned situation. 

Doyoung had never before stepped foot above the ground floor of the Leaky Cauldron, and he has no desire of ever doing it again. It’s simply one thing after another; the dusty floors aren’t as bad as the smog-covered windows and they again aren’t nearly as bad as the cobweb-wrapped rafters. He feels dirty just standing there.

The door in front of him is bare and grey, the only decoration being a rusted number 7 barely hanging on one nail. There is someone on the other side—he can hear them moving about—but he hesitates to knock. Part of him wants to break the door down and pull the man in for questioning, part of him wants to send him flying into a wall but he quickly recognises that as his jealousy talking. He plans to do neither, so in the end he knocks politely and waits with his hands in his pockets for the man on the other side to answer. It takes him only seconds and when he opens the door he does it in the brash, sort of naive way Doyoung has come to associate with Americans. 

“Can I help you?” he says, surprisingly polite. His eyes are wide and warm and Doyoung is forced to take a moment to remind himself that Johnny Suh is a black-market criminal and somehow implicated in the death of nine wizards. 

“Are you Johnny Suh?” he asks in turn, clenching his fingers inside his pockets. “Taeil told me to find you, well you or Ten but he’s impossible to get to.” He hurries to get the words out as Johnny Suh hustles him inside at the first mention of Taeil’s name. Once the door is closed behind them and the man retreats, Doyoung takes his hands from his pockets and pats himself down with a less than happy frown.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he says as he adjusts his sleeve, fingers slipping briefly over his wand hidden inside it to make sure it’s still within reach. He doesn’t trust this man farther than he could throw him and by the look of his bulging chest, that’s not far at all. For a brief moment he wonders if that’s what Jaehyun likes, but he discards the thought before it’s fully formed. That’s not why he’s here.

“How do you know Taeil?” Johnny Suh says, twitchy as his eyes flick to the fireplace mantel behind them where his wand lies discarded. He’s not very subtle.

“My name is Donghyun, I was imprisoned with Taeil for some time,” he says and he can see the tension drain from Johnny Suh’s shoulders. This man is far too trusting for a criminal, which makes this almost too easy.

“He helped me escape, told me to save his husband _ Ten _ and that you would help. Then he …” He had planned to delude Johnny Suh with a false story of comradeship, but the feeling of remorse that clogs his throat now is genuine; he regrets Taeil’s sacrifice more than anything. 

“Taeil’s dead isn’t he?” Johnny Suh says and it’s not a question. He falls together a second later at Doyoung’s confirming nod and while Doyoung has always considered himself an empathic person the sight of Johnny Suh’s grief only irks him. 

“He sacrificed himself so I could escape,” he says, folding his arms over his chest to avoid fidgeting. That’s not a very authoritative look. 

“Yeah that sounds like Taeil alright. Always on the sideline until it really counts,” Johnny Suh says and he’s crying but he doesn’t sound very heartbroken. Doyoung can only imagine he must have been prepared for this eventuality and gotten the heartbreak out of the way a long time ago. 

“Well I’m not like that. Taeil was my friend and I don’t intend to let his sacrifice be in vain,” he says and it may be a part of his rehearsed script but that doesn’t make his vow any less genuine. He didn’t know Taeil long, but the man earned his respect and he intends to do his very best to save Ten from whatever evil clutches he’s gotten himself caught in. It’s ironic how he started this crusade wanting to take down the same man he’s now determined to rescue, but Doyoung is nothing if not adaptable. 

“Well, Ten works in the Ministry, in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Bit ironic for a smuggler, but it’s where they wanted him I guess.”

“Who are _ they _ ?” he interrupts, sighing impatiently when Johnny Suh opts to search around the room for something to wipe his face with instead of answering. Infiltration and interrogation have always been his strongest suits, but every moment spent in the presence of this man erodes his carefully kept countenance and flushes white hot magma through his veins. He wouldn't worry so much about it if it weren’t for the utterly juvenile reasons he has for disliking him. How did he go from being happily married to his work to blindly obsessed with the thought of a _ real _ happy ever after in such a short time?

His work has always come first—before friends, before family and before himself—but he is so close to losing his tenuous control and pull his wand at Johnny Suh purely because he pursued Jaehyun where Doyoung did not. And the man may be a black market smuggler, but Doyoung won’t delude himself into thinking he’d be excused for cursing him half to death because of it. As it is he has no reason for even being here and if Johnny Suh were to press charges then he could kiss his job—and any future he may have had at the Ministry—goodbye.

“I don’t know-” “That’s not good enough,” he interrupts again, harsher then he intended but it has the desired effect of making Johnny Suh sit up straight and finally focus on _ him _ and not the vague outline of his existence. 

“Who was holding Taeil captive? Who placed Ten at the Ministry? How did you all get involved? Are you telling me you can’t answer any of this?”

“No, of course not I just-”

“Then start there. I’m not asking for names, I want to know _ who they are _.”

Clearly Johnny Suh has hackles to raise as well because his eyes darken and flick once again to his wand on the mantel, now even further away from his reach. Before he can think to move, Doyoung pulls his own wand out and flicks it at the grey oak coloured wand and it flies into his hand. 

“Tell me what I want to know and you’ll get it back,” he says, twirling the wand between his fingers once before gripping it tightly in his fist. It thrums in his hand as if warning him not to try anything, but it falls silent in seconds. Clearly loyalty is not its main attribute. 

“Alright, alright. Calm down won’t you,” Johnny Suh holds his hands up and laughs and Doyoung would’ve been aggravated by his casual tone if he hadn’t used the same tactic himself on several occasions. Using someone’s temper against them is a classic interrogation technique. 

“Where do you want me to start? What did Taeil tell you?” Johnny Suh asks and sits down in the chair by the writing desk. He doesn’t offer Doyoung a seat so he doesn’t take one, preferring anyway to remain standing with his arms crossed, a wand in each hand. 

“From the beginning; I don’t trust Taeil to have gotten the details right. He wasn’t in the best state of mind.” A lie, Taeil had fared remarkably well in captivity, but he also hadn’t told him much. However, Johnny Suh wouldn't know that. 

“The beginning? Well, long story short, Taeil made a potion—or a drug if you will—that could give you these wild hallucinations for a couple of hours, perfectly normal and _ harmless _. We started selling it and before we knew it we had a veritable empire in the magical black market, mostly in the US and East Asia. Then, a few years ago, we wanted to expand and figured we’d start here. It was all good, we had everything set up nicely with a local contact and were ready for a screentest so to speak, except it went wrong. 

There was a party and no-maj got involved and it was a whole thing with the Ministry and Aurors and whatnot so we went underground, figured we’d lay low for a while and then try again. Except things weren’t done going wrong. You see, the drug may have been all fun and games for magical people, but the no-maj got sick, real sick. Something about it didn’t agree with them.”

“That’s putting it lightly seeing as fifteen muggles have died from it,” he butts in with a snort and a raised eyebrow. Just because he never counted the non-magical deaths in his reports doesn’t mean he isn’t aware of them.

“That came later,” Johnny Suh waves a hand as if the information is irrelevant, but Doyoung can see that it gnaws at him. “Tensions were too high for us to try and leave the country so we laid low instead, and that’s when they found us. I don’t know how, but my bet is on our local contact ratting us out. They never gave any names or anything, but they all wore the same mark; a broken infinity symbol.”

After this is over he never wants to hear the words _ infinity symbol _ ever again. What’s so special about it? Least of all a broken one? Doesn’t that only defeat its purpose?

“They wanted to refine the drug—pinpoint what about it made it safe for magical people but not non-magical people—and in the beginning we all thought it sounded legit, why wouldn't we want to know that, you know? But … well I’m sure you know better than me what type of people we were actually dealing with.”

“Magical Supremacists,” he says mostly to himself. He hadn’t made the connection until just now, but the narrative gradually taking shape in Johnny Suh’s mellow voice made it obvious. No wonder Blood Magic is involved; from his understanding, its practitioners were famously narrow-minded.

“Yeah,” Johnny Suh exhales and is quiet for a long time, looking more than a little green. His file had said muggleborn so Doyoung isn’t surprised the man would have a personal grievance with that. 

“When we refused to cooperate they took Taeil captive; kidnapped him really. A few days later there was a letter telling Ten that if he ever wanted to see his husband again he should find a man in the Ministry atrium wearing a white tie. He went to the Ministry the next day and I haven’t seen him since. The only contact I’ve had with either of them in over three years is a single letter from Ten two years ago telling me it was a setup; I think he’s being held captive just as much as Taeil is. And that’s the whole story,” Johnny Suh throws his hands out with a sigh.

An obvious lie. 

For one, Doyoung knows Johnny Suh met Ten at the Ministry mere months ago when he was flagged as a possible smuggler. His file says he was cleared of all charges, but considering Ten was the one to process him he doubts the truth of it, especially considering everything Johnny Suh has admitted to him already. He hates that he can’t act on it.

If he had gone through the correct channels and gotten permission for a sting, he could have taken Johnny Suh in on less than what he has already been given, but Irene is still on personal leave and he got impatient. And jealous; he can never forget that. Now his hands are tied. If he brings him in now Johnny Suh will at the very least be deported—most probably handed over to MACUSA for incarceration—but any satisfaction that might give him will be short-lived once the red tape catches up to him.

“What about the potion ingredients? Mescaline, south sea pearl, they’re not exactly in easy access, how are you smuggling this into the country without leaving any trace?” The first thing he had done when he got a partial ingredients list was cross-reference every item with import logs dating back several years. A useless effort that had wasted him close to three weeks. Of course, most of them could be grown locally in a greenhouse—he knows that much at least—but he had no way to even begin cataloging that.

“_ They _,” Johnny Suh insists through gritted teeth. “I have nothing to do with that anymore.” Nothing? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s too much of a coincidence that Johnny Suh showed up, met Ten and took Jaehyun from him just as he was finally getting somewhere in this blasted case. Before he can stop it, his tongue runs away from him.

“Then what the fuck does Jaehyun have to do with this?!”

He bites his own tongue. He should not have said that. That might be the worst thing he could have ever said and under normal circumstances he never would have made such a mistake. But none of this is normal; _ he _ isn’t even acting like normal.

“Who the hell are you?” Johnny Suh asks quietly and while all the tentative trust the man had been building has vanished, he is still calm. Almost scarily so. 

“That’s of no consequence,” he says, forcing his voice to remain calm. In a move meant to aggravate Johnny Suh, he slips his wand back in its holster on his left arm and points the man’s own wand at his face. But Johnny Suh’s eyes are not on his wand—or Doyoung’s face—but are rather fixed with a strange sort of intensity on his exposed wrist.

“The pureblood,” he mumbles so quietly Doyoung doubts he meant to say it at all.

“Yes, what of it?” he tightens his mouth and lifts his chin enough to look down his nose at the tall man sprawled in a worn-down armchair. Any mention of the purity of his blood draws a number of learned reactions from him, all of them bathed in arrogance. 

“That’s an interesting tattoo,” Johnny Suh says and it’s too random to not be significant and Doyoung’s mind works overtime trying to piece it together. His mind serves him an image of Jaehyun with his shirt and sweater rucked up—looking so adorable with his blushing cheeks—showing him his new tattoo. He doesn’t doubt Johnny Suh has seen it too, and the thought hits him that the man might’ve even been present when Jaehyun got it inked. He swallows a laugh; a muggleborn like Johnny Suh really has no business ambling about in Knockturn Alley. 

“Not quite as interesting as a submarine caught in a maelstrom,” he says because he has lived with the pettiness long enough now to not let it take over. The tsunami of emotions washing over Johnny Suh’s face is more than worth it, but he’s surprised that’s all it took to unbalance him. 

“He told me he hadn’t seen you in years,” Johnny Suh grits, rising from his chair to pace. In a second their conversation has taken a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and the realisation hits Doyoung like a punch in the gut. He does see how his words could be interpreted that way, but he hadn’t intended to imply that Jaehyun has been unfaithful. The very thought creates a sour taste in his mouth. 

“How long?” Johnny Suh turns to him, throwing a hand out as if he forgot that Doyoung currently has his wand. “You don’t look like someone who’s been scorned so how long have you been fucking him?”

“Do you really think Jaehyun’s capable of that? Of being unfaithful?”

“The Jaehyun I know today? Hell yeah!” Johnny Suh bursts at the seams, gripping his hair and kicking after the chair he was previously sitting in so it flies into the wall. “The Jaehyun I knew two years ago, no way. But he’s changed.” 

Doyoung didn’t know Jaehyun two years ago, maybe that Jaehyun was an anomaly because the one he knows now is painfully alike the one he knew eight years ago. It’s what made it so easy to fall in love with him again.

“I never know if he’s lying to me or just withholding the truth because he never says anything!” It seems he accidentally opened Pandora's box with Johnny Suh’s feelings by bringing Jaehyun into this; their previous conversation scribbled over by the man’s continued lamentation of how different Jaehyun is, how he only wants to fuck all the time—which may or may not have brought a satisfied grin to his face—and how he clams up every time things get serious. 

“You really don’t get him at all, do you?” He interrupts Johnny Suh’s tiresome tirade with a scoff. What was amusing two seconds ago is no longer so, and he won’t listen quietly to someone badmouthing Jaehyun for something he can’t control. “Jaehyun’s stutter has never been all that bad, but it’s still an element of insecurity to him. He doesn’t think people actually understand him when he talks so when things _ get serious _ he’d rather say nothing at all than have his words be misunderstood.”

When they were in school he and Jaehyun would often communicate with notes and letters not because Jaehyun couldn’t talk but because it made him feel more comfortable. There has always been so much going on inside that brain of his, and not being able to express it in the way he wanted to was always such a burden. But on paper he could get it all down, no hiccups, no curl of the tongue, no stutter of any kind. He was so proud when he read Jaehyun’s first paper in _ Horticulture Weekly _ because finally everyone could see what he had known for years. That he’s brilliant.

“I’m not Jaehyun’s _ lover _,” he scoffs, feeling his insides clench in an unpleasant way. Any other time he would have relished in the thought of being Jaehyun’s lover, but with the connotations Johnny Suh put in the word, now it only makes him feel sick. 

“We went to school together, we have history _ yes _ , but not what you think. I can’t speak for what’s in Jaehyun’s mind, but when we were together, you two _ were not _. Jaehyun isn’t a cheater.” 

The idea is too outlandish to even make sense in his mind; Jaehyun was always kind, and loyal to a fault. To think that he would consciously make the decision to be unfaithful … clearly Johnny Suh doesn’t know Jaehyun as well as he thinks he does. 

“I don’t know, but I also didn’t know he had dark wizard friends,” the way Johnny Suh says it tells him very clearly it’s not just a fact but a jab at him as well. He allows him the misconception; his pure blood and Slytherin colours and generally aggressive countenance could fool anyone, especially an American muggleborn like Johnny Suh. But his magic is grey at best, and on a normal day he actually has morals. 

“Then tell me what you _ do _ know. What does Jaehyun have to do with all of this?” He pulls the armchair upright again with a wave of Johnny Suh’s wand and moves it over the floor so it stops right behind the man, knocking him off his feet, and he falls into it with no grace whatsoever. Johnny Suh doesn’t make him nervous, but his height is an annoyance and Doyoung finds he likes looking down on him much better. 

“Nothing, he has nothing to do with it,” Johnny Suh says and immediately raises his hands when Doyoung points his wand in his face. “Relax! I’ll tell you, jeez!”

The room falls quiet as Johnny Suh takes a breath and curls his fingers anxiously around the armrests, looking from Doyoung to his wand to the door and his own lap.

“About three years ago Jaehyun’s mom got sick, yeah?” he finally says and Doyoung feels a cold sensation rush through his body as an idea starts to form in his mind. “Well it was the drug. It wasn’t personal, she was just one of many at this gardening fair in Scotland, but I sought them out every single one and kept tabs on them. Some died very quickly, with others it took longer while a few didn’t get sick at all. I think it’s the magic, the more magic blood you have the more protected you are. A few months later Jaehyun left on his self-appointed mission, he was looking for a cure for his mom and it seemed like he was getting somewhere. So I sought him out, figured I’d get close, figure out what he was researching, but he was so closed off I could barely get two words out of him so I-” He stops suddenly, face washed with guilt and he doesn’t have to say more for Doyoung to understand.

“So you seduced him, used him to what end? To get his research? What, did you think you could make up for all the bad you’d done by presenting a cure?”

“No! I wanted to help him! Unlike him, I _ knew _ what was making his mom sick, maybe if I could work that angle then we could find a cure _ together_!”

“You knew?” Doyoung hisses, letting all the cold within him flow out through his voice and Johnny Suh visibly gulps and falls silent in a heartbeat. “You _ knew _ ? You’re the reason his mother is sick to begin with, you fucking bastard. He’s probably going to lose his mother, the one person he has always loved the most in the world, and it’s going to be your fault. And you complain about _ him _ lying to _ you _?” 

He knows he hit a nerve when Johnny Suh bursts into tears, any attempt at keeping a facade in front of Doyoung long abandoned. 

“I know okay!” he sobs, burying his face in his own hands. “I left him in Greece because I couldn’t take the lying anymore. I didn’t plan on seeing him again when I came to London, but suddenly he was right there in front of me and it felt like fate. I couldn’t stay away.”

Fate is a fool’s misconception. Coincidences happen, but he doesn’t believe they happen for a reason or to fit into a grand plan the universe creates for every single person. But Johnny Suh seems like the kind of person to believe in things like that, who romanticizes the world around him. He reminds him of Mark in that way, and he wonders if his family—like Mark’s—follow the Christian traditions. Belief in an almighty God must be a nice scapegoat. 

“Well you’re going to stay away now, and stay away for good. You’ll break up with him-” “What?! You can’t decide that-” “_ You’ll break up with him _ .” Doyoung brushes off the interruption like a particularly nasty bug. “Or I will tell him everything you told me today and he can make the decision on his own, but if I know Jaehyun right he won’t stay. So I guess it comes down to how much you want to hurt him and what you want him to think of _ you _ when it’s over.”

If a pin fell they’d hear it, but Doyoung doesn’t push; no matter what he has done, Johnny Suh seems to genuinely care for Jaehyun and the pain in his eyes is something he can relate to. 

“I don’t want to hurt him.” The whisper is almost too quiet for him to hear. Johnny Suh drops his head into his hands and lets out a last, choked sob. “Please, let me do it. I’ll tell him okay, no more lies. Just let it come from me. Please?” It’s what he wanted to hear, but there’s a selfish part of him that says it’s not enough. 

“And you’ll leave; tell him what you need to and then leave him. I don’t care what your intentions are now, you used him once and I’m not going to risk you doing it again.” The risk he really doesn’t want to take is that Jaehyun will forgive the man once the truth is laid bare. He knows it, and the guilt is almost unbearable. A second ago he was willing to leave the decision in Jaehyun’s hands, but now he’s essentially making it for him. 

But he wants Jaehyun, desperately. More than solving this case, more than pleasing his parents, he wants Jaehyun to be his. He wants a life with him, free of tragedy. 

Unbidden, the voice of the man in the mansion rings in his head; _ it’s a broken infinity symbol, the band they carry. If you can’t discern its meaning, you will never solve your puzzle. _

It sounds a lot more like a curse then it did when he first heard it. He wonders if the man had foreseen this in some way or if he talked in obscurities on the daily, but he was right to call it a puzzle. And Doyoung has never been good at giving up on a half-finished puzzle, no matter how many pieces it has. The first step to getting the life he wants with Jaehyun, is to solve this case. 

“One last thing,” he says and once Johnny Suh looks up at him he moves to place the man’s wand deliberately on the mantelpiece he got it from. “The ingredients, are they grown or imported? Except for the south sea pearls of course.”

Johnny Suh leans his head back and looks at the ceiling, sighing heavily through his mouth before answering. “I’m not sure, all I know is they wanted Ten in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. I assumed because it was convenient, import, you know. But they must have already had someone on the inside to get him a job there to begin with.”

Johnny Suh is still looking at the ceiling so he doesn’t see how Doyoung’s face pales. Someone on the inside who might take an interest in his case if they thought he was close to unraveling the truth. Someone with knowledge of every going-ons in the department and the power to hire whoever they want. Feeling himself unravel at a rapid pace, he turns on his heels and exits the room as quick as he can. He only makes it down one stair before he collapses against the wall, barely holding himself up by the railing. Someone who has a family history that is far from spotless. 

“No,” he gasps, out of breath as his heart races and an image of Irene sitting in his living room, combing through case files and drinking his tea flashes before his eyes. _ It can’t be. _


End file.
